The Owl Gets Mean

We have a new and maybe not entirely welcome variation on The Owl Game. This one can be played day or night and involves Cubby the great owl hunter swooping down on a hapless lemming.

You'll never guess who the lemming is in this game.

Oh wait. You did guess Charlie? How clever of you. And how unfortunate for Charlie.

This is why if you were present in my house at 6:30 this morning, you would have heard me yelling across the downstairs, "Charlie is not a lemming! Knock it off!" as Charlie Lemming got knocked off his feet for the fifth time.

We have so much fun around here; you have no idea.

A.P.D.--The Real Housekeepers of Wherever Edition

The Great Mildew Eradication continues apace. I am currently working my way around the downstairs bedroom, which is always horribly damp and even in a relatively dry summer requires some serious attention. Since this was not a dry summer--at all--serious is an understatement.

Gross.

This room was last very throroughly cleaned last summer. Not that you could tell based on its current condition. Which made me consider as I was scrubbing: How often would it need to be really thoroughly cleaned to be acceptable?

When I say "thoroughly," I mean in the sense of a good old-fashioned spring cleaning: All furniture moved and cleaned, all surfaces--walls, baseboards, window frames, floors--scrubbed with a scrubby sponge and a tub of water and wood cleaner. By hand. Then dried with a cloth. All curtains and other fabrics washed if possible. Everything.

It takes me about eight hours of this kind of cleaning to completely clean one room in my house. That's a full work day (which of course I do not actually have, so I have to do it over several naptimes). I have eight rooms just downstairs. Another eleven rooms upstairs. The scale of it is literally impossible for me.

That's why even the most-used rooms only get this thorough cleaning once a year. If I'm lucky.

But enough about me. I'm extremely curious about your experiences with this.

So, my lovelies, how often do you do a balls-out, no-holds-barred scrubbing of your house? And how long does it take you to get just one room really, really clean?

Great Minds

A. noted a couple of days ago that soon we're going to have a stretch of cool days with nights at or just below freezing. "You know what this means," he said.

Yes, I thought. I do know what this means. It means I need to get the basil bushes whacked down and make a second batch of pesto. It means I should cut the rest of the never-ending squash off the plants and put them up on the stone wall to cure. It means I should get the garlic planted.

"It means we can start slaughtering lambs," he continued.

Oh. Not what I was expecting him to say.

But that pretty much sums up the differences between us: I think of the vegetable garden; A. thinks of meat.

Soul Mates

The following conversation occurred at the dinner table tonight . . .

A.: So Cubby, do you think we should set some traps next weekend?

Cubby: Yes! Or Daddy, we could set traps, and go hunting, AND go camping!

A.: You think we should have a whole outdoor weekend? Exactly what I was thinking, Cubby.

It's so nice they've found each other, isn't it?

Wild and Free

Cubby's newest favorite activity is looking at the stars and the moon--oh, and Venus, also a favorite--through Grandma's binoculars. Unfortunately, star-gazing requires him to be outside when it's dark. And more to the point, it requires ME to be outside when it's dark.

But only if I can't get A. to go instead.

That's why it is currently 6:20 a.m., pitch black outside, and both of my children are running wild outside under A.'s supervision. At least Cubby is dressed; Charlie is still in his footie pajamas.

Okay, so really they mostly stay in the circle of light cast by the patio light, with occassional forays into the near darkness by Cubby.

Charlie is climbing on a chair. Cubby is chewing on the green part of leek I left out there yesterday when I was prepping some leeks for dinner.

So, one toddler in pajamas climbing a chair and one three-year-old chewing on raw leek greens. In the semi-illuminated dark.

Good morning! It's another fine day at Blackrock!

A Tale of Two Turnips

I pulled a couple of turnips out of the garden the other day and used the greens for a stir-fry. The turnips themselves I left on the table outside to get some of the mud washed off the roots by the rain that day.

But Cubby got to them first.

I went inside to check on something in the oven, and when I came back out, he was gnawing on one of the raw turnips. With mud on his face.

Clean vegetables are for sissies.

Good thing there were two turnips, because of course Charlie had to have what his big brother had.

Though I did cut the muddy roots off of his, in the interests of saving myself some laundry.

I took a bite of one myself, just out of curiosity. Those are some peppery sumbitches raw. I didn't think they'd eat more than a couple of bites each.

They each ate about half of their turnips, and then Cubby tossed his to Mia. "Dogs don't eat turnips," I started to say.

You'd think after seven years, I would know that Mia eats ANYTHING.

Next time I might manage to actually cook the turnips before they get devoured by the hungry--and without doubt very weird--hordes. But I wouldn't bet on it.

Lemons

When life hands you lemons in the form of two sick children who are producing prodigious amounts of mucous and getting up at 4:30 a.m. (because of the mucous) . . .

Plus dog shit in the back hall to clean up first thing in the morning . . .

Plus incessant rain . . .

Plus a husband who starts feeling none too chipper . . .

Plus the telltale sore throat that means it's only a matter of time before you, too, will become a walking mucous factory . . .

Make coffee. And lots of it.

Be back soon. I hope.