Settling In

There's always so much to do after returning from a trip: running the lake pump to fill the cisterns; getting more chicken food; pulling out the spiles in the maple trees and washing the sap buckets out; doing mountains of laundry.

Perhaps some of those are specific to Blackrock? Yeah.

Spring arrived while we were gone. When Cubby and I left, it was 37 degrees with snow on the way. Yesterday it was 66 degrees with bright sunshine. The crocuses are out in full force, to the delight of the bees getting drunk on nectar. While Cubby reunited happily with his buddy the lawn tractor, I took the opportunity to drag away the remaining lilac branches that have been sitting around since A.'s big pruning job weeks ago*.

If this weather keeps up, which it is supposed to do, A. might actually till the garden this weekend to plant some oats as a cover crop, and we can get in some early lettuce and spinach. The shearer is coming on Monday to get those heavy wool coats off the presumably pregnant sheep. Which means lambing is just around the corner.

Spring has come to Blackrock. Brace yourselves.

* Incidentally, I got a manicure for my sister's wedding. The lady said it should last for two weeks. She was not counting on my particular lifestyle, however. I suspect this sassy bright pink nail polish will have a short lifespan at Blackrock.

Stupified

That's the only word I can use to describe A. and I last night after we completed our cross-country odyssey. We just sat in the living room staring mutely at each other. And this, mind you, is after a trip with no complications whatsoever. There is just no way to get from my parents' house to Blackrock without physical exhaustion.

But make it we did! Cubby was his usual stellar self on the planes, although he had some hysterics when I put him to bed at home. I think he was just really confused. Poor kid has been through a lot of upheaval in the last two weeks. After a brief comforting session to calm him down, though, he settled down to sleep and is still sleeping now, eleven hours later.

A. and I might also still be sleeping, if it wasn't for the goddamn cat yowling in the upstairs hall at 6:30 this morning, presumably for food. Had I had a gun handy, Pitty Pet might have gone to his eternal reward today. Luckily for him, the MiL got up instead and fed him. She's a much nicer person than I am.

That's okay, though, because A. had to get up anyway for court. Life resumes. The family Blackrock is all home at last.

Let Us All Eat Cake!

Hello, duckies!  Yes yes, still in Tucson, still awaiting the arrival of A., who is wearily slogging his way through work in the hopes that his office won't explode when he has to leave it on Friday.  This is like the trip that never ends, right?

But, oh, we are so grateful to be here today, for today is my father's birthday.  My dad is something of a grumpy old man*, with a grumpy old man's attitude about birthdays.  That is, he doesn't give a damn about them and could not care less if no celebration in his honor occurred.

Too bad he's married to my mom.

She makes sure there is cake and ice cream, party hats and balloons, and as many people singing "Happy Birthday" off-key as possible.  And this year, those people will include her, me and Cubby, my brother and niece, my sister and her fiance and their daughter.  That's a lot of people to butcher "Happy Birthday."  Also a lot of people to eat cake, which is why we're making two of them.

I get my prodigious appetite for cake directly from my parents, as you can now see.

If you would like to eat cake on my father's behalf, I'm sure he would be most pleased.  Or not.  Hard to say.  But it would probably please you, so go ahead, in honor of my dad.  You're welcome.

*  Luckily, a grumpy old man with a fine sense of humor who doesn't take offense at public teasing.  Uh. Right, Dad?

A Matched Set

The appropriate parties having been notified, I can now let you in on the Top Secret sex of Precious Cargo.  You ready for this?

I'm not sure I am.  It's a boy.

Yes, another boy for the family Blackrock.  Another tiny man who in ten years or so will probably be fighting with his big brother on an hourly basis and eating us out of the house.  I told A. he'd better make sure these boys know how to hunt at an early age.  Then all we have to do is teach them how to dress a deer or rabbit themselves and how to cook, and TA DA!  They can feed themselves.  Wouldn't that be nice.

Incidentally, despite the many of you who predicted or hoped for a girl this time, no one who knows us in real life is in the least surprised that we're having another boy.  Boys run in A.'s family.  His father had only brothers, A. has only (biological) brothers, and now A. is continuing the family tradition.

So now I can pull all of Cubby's old clothes out of storage for the next round of infant testosterone.  And think of another boy's name.  Damn.  Another boy's name.  Boy's names are hard, man.

Disappointing

If you are checking here in the hopes of some second-hand stories of terrible travel with toddlers, complete with screaming fits and meltdowns and the censorious stares of strangers judging my parenting skills, well . . . sorry.  That Cubby of mine has once again let me down in that way.  I have no stories like that.  He made it through a 4 a.m wake-up, two-hour drive to the airport, six-hour flight to Las Vegas, and an hour flight to Tucson with nary a tear.  There were nothing but indulgent smiles and fulsome praise from our fellow travelers.

God, I love that kid.

He even slept 12 hours the first night we were here, not waking up until 6:15 in the morning.  I, of course,  woke up at 3 a.m. anticipating he would be up and raring to go at any minute, but no.  He took a two and a half hour nap yesterday, went to bed at 7 p.m. and is still sleeping now at 5 a.m.

My parents are beginning to suspect that I drug him.  Since I know otherwise, I'm beginning to suspect he's a robot.

Robot or not, however, that kid gets a whole SHEET of gold stars for behavior.

Here I Go Again On My Own

Well, not entirely on my own.  The last time I took a trip on my own, it was REALLY on my own.  No husband, no son, nothing but me and my roller bag.  This time it's nothing but me, my roller bag, a thousand other pieces of overloaded luggage, and Cubby.

Note the conspicuous absence of A. from this scenario.  And then pray for me as I transport myself and Cubby cross-country on two different airplanes to get to Arizona.

This odyssey will be happening tomorrow.  Since A. really couldn't take a lot of time off from work around the time of my sister's wedding, I knew that unless I wanted to take a paltry four-day trip as a family--which is pretty ridiculous, considering the time, hassle, and expense of traveling that far--Cubby and I would be at least traveling out there alone.  And then I figured that if I was going to all the trouble of flying by myself with a toddler (while pregnant, and still kind of hobbly from back pain that will probably not be helped by those comfy airplane seats), then dammit, I was going to make it count.  So Cubby and I are going out a week and a half before the wedding, in order to get settled before the wedding festivities begin.  And, you know, play outside in a place that has no mud or clouds or any other of the unpleasantness that is upstate New York in late winter.

A. will be joining us the day before the wedding, and we'll all be flying home together the Monday following the wedding.  Which means I just have to get out there by myself.  With Cubby.  And Precious Cargo.  And lest you think I will have forgotten all about you in the post-traumatic stress induced by such a journey (me?  overdramatic?  whatever do you mean?), let me assure you that I will certainly be checking in with you in the next week or so, if only to let you in on the nature of Precious Cargo's precious bits.

Yes, we found out the sex yesterday.  But I'm not going to tell you yet (MEAN), because this is the one time I will have the pleasure of getting to tell my family some momentous news face-to-face.  This doesn't happen much when there's a three-thousand-mile distance between family members, so you're just going to have to wait until they know.  But soon we will end the suspense.  Will we add a precious Blackrock princess to the human menagerie, or will Cubby be granted a little brother to torment until the end of days?

Tune in to find out!  And send some positive vibes my way tomorrow, okay?  I'll probably need them.

Blow the Men Down

Hey, remember those sea shanties Cubby and I used to listen to all the time?  It just occurred to me we haven't listened to those in a really long time.  I should get that CD out.  I think he's old enough to learn the lyrics to "The Fireship" now, don't you?

ANYWAY.

This has nothing to do with what I was going to talk about, which was ALLELUIA, the goddamn wind has stopped.  The wind was blowing hard and constantly for about two days, and it was driving us all crazy.  The wind was joined by snow yesterday morning, meaning it was really, really unreasonable to go outside.  This, in conjunction with a 4:45 a.m. wake-up and no more than a 45 minute nap, meant that by the time we got to the late afternoon when the snow had stopped but the wind hadn't, Cubby was going outside come hell, high water, or gale force winds.

A. and I took him into the gully near our house.  We walked up the creek until we were away from the wind, although it was still lashing the trees above us in a most disconcerting manner.  After an hour of fun that consisted of keeping Cubby from throwing himself headlong in the freezing creek and giving himself hypothermia, we battled the wind home again.

The wretched wind stopped last night.  The sun is out and it promises to be a bright, calm day, if a little cold.  We'll take it.