Lori Seaborg

Spring on the Gulf Coast

 

Spring is certainly here on the Gulf Coast!

 

Blooming:

 

Azaleas, Camellias, Bridal's Wreath, Bradford Pear, and so many more that the colors are just dazzling.  Our azaleas on the Gulf Coast are particularly lovely this year.  It is as if the entire county has brightened considerably in the past couple of weeks.

 

Collecting:

 

Eggs, eggs, eggs...in the doghouse, behind the doghouse, in the woods, and in the chicken pen (where they all should be laying!).  Green ones, pink ones, bluish ones, and brown ones.  Wish I could give you some!

 

Buying:

 

Local Alabama Produce:

 

Strawberries, fresh off the local farm -- and at only  $8.99/flat (but I first paid another farmers' market $12.99/flat before I found that better price -- ah, well)

 

Fresh local spinach at $2.49 for a huge bag of it (we use fresh spinach as our lettuce - shh, the kids don't know you're supposed to have anything else)

 

Almost Local Florida produce: 

 

A whole box of "canning tomatoes" (they call it that when they have a slight blemish on them) for just $4.49 for the entire box (just over 20 lbs.)

 

A big bag of slightly blemished pickling cucumbers for $0.99 

 

A big bag of slightly ugly yellow squash for $0.99

 

Almost Local Georgia produce:

 

Vidalia onion greens -- mmm!  $1.49 for a bunch of 4-6 big onions with long greens

 

Ugh....The apples weren't a great price at $1.29/lb.  for Fuji's, but we can't grow everything down here!  And I don't know where the $0.99/lb. green grapes came from.

 

In My Garden:

 

Late-February planting: 

 

The onions are about 6" tall; carrots are about 2"; radishes are doing well; the mustard greens are being eaten by my chickens before they can grow; early peas are about 4" tall; can't remember where the beats are, but I think I planted some!

 

March planting:

 

The watermelons are sprouting; I planted cantaloupe, yellow squash, zucchini, and bush beans a few days ago.

 

From the Burris Farm Market in Loxley, Alabama:

 

A recipe I am going to try tomorrow.

 

Strawberry Bread

 

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

4 eggs, beaten

1-1/4 cups vegetable oil

1 cup chopped pecans

2-1/2 cups chopped Burris Grown Strawberries (or, your local ones!)

 

Combine first 5 ingredients and mix.  Combine remaining 4 ingredients and add to dry mixture, stirring well.  Spoon into 2 greased and floured loaf pans.  Bake at 350F for 1 hour.

 

by Lori Seaborg

Freedom

"As I sat in the grey bathrobe four babies had nestled against

while they nursed, my brain started clanging this jubilant message:  There are no shackles in this house, this is no jail. 

These kids are your ticket to freedom like nothing you have ever tasted, the kind that is not hinged on TV appearances or

writing for Life magazine or being a size six again. 

It's the liberation that comes from the sheer act of living itself. 

When you stop to be where you are, then your life can really begin."

~ from Surrendering to Motherhood: Losing Your Mind, Finding Your Soul by Iris Krasnow.

by Lori Seaborg

My Cute Distraction

PaperbackSwap.com

With the garden planting and the new baby goat, I haven't had much time to blog.  It is absolutely Spring here on the Gulf Coast!  Our cherry tree is in full bloom (I see tiny green leaves today!), the bulbs are up, the River Birch have red "buds," the azaleas are blooming brilliant pink.  I just love Spring!  If you are more North than me, hang on because Spring is coming your way, too.  I heard once that Spring heads North at something like 18 miles per day. 

I have a new link for you.  It is for an online book swap. 

Here's how it works:  You list books that you want to give away.  You send a book to someone through the mail (you can mail it from your mailbox, if it is less than one pound).  You then receive a credit to purchase a book for yourself, which you choose out of the thousands listed.

To get started, you need to list nine books, but in return for that you get three credits so you receive books right away.  After I listed my first nine books, I was able to pick up 'Kidnapped' by Robert Louis Stevenson (this was a hardback; you can list those, too) and 'For the Children's Sake' by Susan MacAulay.  I still have a credit to use, so list your books so I can get them!    I was referred to the site by another homeschooling mom; it looks like there are a lot of us on the site, which is great for sharing our extra books.

Go to PaperBackSwap.com to get started.   When you sign up, use my referral name:  dreamwords@bellsouth.net so I can get a book credit for referring you.  Thanks!

by Lori Seaborg

Let the Mother Go Out to Play!

From 19th Century author Charlotte Mason:

"Let the mother go out to play! If she would only have courage to let
everything go when life becomes too tense, and just take a day, or half a
day, out in the fields, or with a favourite book, or in a picture gallery
looking long and well at just two or three pictures, or in bed, without the
children, life would go on far more happily for both children and parents."  Charlotte Mason Series Vol. 3 p. 33-34

Honestly, playing is a little too easy for me, but I love having permission to do it! I agree with Charlotte Mason that a playing mother makes a happier mother.  I also agree that it takes courage to "let everything go when life becomes too tense."  Don't you find that difficult to do?

by Lori Seaborg

(p.s.  Did you see my baby goat?  Go to this blog's homepage and scroll down through the recent posts.  He is sooo cute!)

Photo of myself and our youngest with Apricot, the new billy goat

Distracted

We have a baby around here!  A literal kid...Apricot, our baby goat.

I am driven to distraction by him.  I wonder why it takes me two hours to cook dinner and why I can't get extra chores done, and why we are so off-schedule (not that we ever were on, but we always try).  Well, yeah, dinner doesn't get done quickly when I'm spending hours starting out the window at the goat pen, hoping to see a small bit of white romping around so that I know the little bundle is okay.  And chores don't get done when I tell myself I'll "just go feed the mama an apple quickly.  She probably needs it."  An hour or two later, I'm still sitting on a log, petting Apricot's head, gazing at his beautifully created blue eyes, or twirling his mama's mohair locks around my fingers. 

I just can't get enough of those two goats. 

Three days later, I still can't believe the miracle of the baby, who was born unexpectedly on the same day we lost our other precious goat, Mary, to an unknown illness.  The baby is such a gift, just as his mama, April, and her companion, Mary, were last October when they were offered to me by a complete stranger whom I met when I went to pick up something she had posted on a local recycling e-list.   By my reaction to her beautiful Angora goats, she could "just tell" I'd make a great home for the goats that she could no longer keep. 

I'm grateful for an easy-going and tolerant husband who can't resist my own blue eyes.  That's just downright useful sometimes, so I used my female charms that day to get a goat pen built by him for the goats I'd always dreamt of having. 

Most of all, I'm grateful for God who now and then gives me the desires of my heart. 

For weeks, I've been trying to get up earlier in the mornings, wanting to start my days ahead of the children.   I think I've even blogged about this struggle.  If you are having the same trouble, I have a bit of advice for you:  just get yourself a wee little billy goat, and you'll be up right at dawn, checking to see if he made it through the night just fine.  It's a pretty simple solution, really.

Lori Seaborg

Baby KID Days

We have a baby around here!  A literal kid...Apricot, our baby goat.

I am driven to distraction by him.  I wonder why it takes me two hours to cook dinner and why I can't get extra chores done, and why we are so off-schedule (not that we ever were on, but we always try).  Well, yeah, dinner doesn't get done quickly when I'm spending hours starting out the window at the goat pen, hoping to see a small bit of white romping around so that I know the little bundle is okay.  And chores don't get done when I tell myself I'll "just go feed the mama an apple quickly.  She probably needs it."  An hour or two later, I'm still sitting on a log, petting Apricot's head, gazing at his beautifully created blue eyes, or twirling his mama's mohair locks around my fingers. 

I just can't get enough of those two goats. 

Three days later, I still can't believe the miracle of the baby, who was born unexpectedly on the same day we lost our other precious goat, Mary, to an unknown illness.  The baby is such a gift, just as his mama, April, and her companion, Mary, were last October when they were offered to me by a complete stranger whom I met when I went to pick up something she had posted on a local recycling e-list.   By my reaction to her beautiful Angora goats, she could "just tell" I'd make a great home for the goats that she could no longer keep. 

I'm grateful for an easy-going and tolerant husband who can't resist my own blue eyes.  That's just downright useful sometimes, so I used my female charms that day to get a goat pen built by him for the goats I'd always dreamt of having. 

Most of all, I'm grateful for God who now and then gives me the desires of my heart. 

For weeks, I've been trying to get up earlier in the mornings, wanting to start my days ahead of the children.   I think I've even blogged about this struggle.  If you are having the same trouble, I have a bit of advice for you:  just get yourself a wee little billy goat, and you'll be up right at dawn, checking to see if he made it through the night just fine.  It's a pretty simple solution, really.

Lori Seaborg

Missey ' s Wisdom

I was browsing through the site of our online friend, Missey Gray*,  tonight, reading her posts, enjoying her writing, and absolutely - desperately - wishing she was still with us on Earth so we could read about the new baby's beauty and if her son's rash healed and about the tender care her husband is giving her.  Reading her blog, I came upon this gem of wisdom from Missey that all of us homeschooling mothers need to read, reread, and then apply to our lives. 

I sure hope this bit of wisdom from Missey will touch you tonight as it did me.  From her December 19, 2005 blog entry (emphasis mine):

"This is the first year that I have given myself permission to take all of December off from schooling and it has been wonderful!

 

Anyway, that's why I've been so quiet lately.  We have been enjoying lots of family time this month.  I think a month-long break is just what we needed!  We have played games, eaten pizza, looked at Christmas lights, listened to Christmas music, burned scented candles, tried new recipes, enjoyed family get-togethers, gone shopping (both IRL and online), watched the birds, made Christmas ornaments, and lounged around in our PJ's and slippers as much as possible.  :-D

 

Life has been so laid-back and relaxed that I don't know how we'll ever get back on track come January, but I'm not going to think about that right now.  I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.  For now, I'm enjoying making memories with my family and letting all the worries and stresses roll right off my back.  They'll be there for another day.  But for today I'm going to get my Love Bank filled back up with kisses and hugs and quiet conversations (while making those same kinds of deposits into each of my loved one's Love Banks) and regain the strength to face all those worries and stresses that will still be waiting for me come January.  I think that by then they won't seem so big anymore anyway.  ;-)"

Hug your babies. 

God bless,

Lori Seaborg

* For those of you who do not know, Missey passed away this week from complications after a c-section for their fifth child, Melissa Kate.  She blogged the morning she died.. 

Here is the information:

 

Yesterday Missey went in to get her stress test that she's been getting every 2 weeks.  The test showed that Missey was losing amniotic fluid and that she had lost enough of it for  it to be alarming. That's when they decided to go ahead and take the baby.

After they lifted the baby from her body, some of the amniotic fluid got into her blood stream and caused a blood clot, which is what caused her death. She never came out of surgery. Her MIL said that this only Happens 1 in 200,000.

She said that the girls are holding up OK. She said that they all slept, no... clung, together in their bed last night. The oldest got up at one point and asked if little Nathan could also sleep with them, so they moved him into the bed with the 3 girls. She said that Tom is just in a daze. He has gone to the hospital this morning to be able to feed the baby.

 

Tom and Missey had chosen a name for the baby, but after Missey passed on they decided to name the baby Melissa Kate.

Our Sweet Goats

 

Taken December 2005.  Mary, who passed away last night is on the left.  April, who was pregnant in this photo and we did not know it!, is on the right.  April gave birth to Apricot on the day Mary died.  God blessed us good! 

 

See my homepage for last night's blog about the goats.