Spring Saturday

Posted on March 15, 2014 by Keely

I’ve been wanting to paint the front door since we moved in. It’s going to be blue for luck.

Sean made bacon, eggs and cornmeal pancakes for breakfast while I worked on the door. The smell of bacon frying made me smile. Spring is really here: I worked all morning with the front door open and a chill breeze blowing dust out of the corners of the ceiling; there are flowers coming up under the tree where we slaughtered Pinkie last fall, and the hennies are laying five eggs a day. We can’t keep up with production, so if you’re an Arkansan, we’re selling homestead eggs for $3 a dozen. All proceeds go to chicken feed.

Smells: bacon frying, rosemary oil snapping out of dry twigs as I cut away the dead, lemongrass and rot, fresh mint lingering on my hands from pulling out dead stalks and discovering new beneath; exhaust from the tiller as it roared and pulled. We planted coneflowers, hollyhocks and bachelor’s buttons. Lettuce and peas are sprouting now, and the quince is flowering.

There are a thousand
things I should do
buttons to button
not frilled with blue
practical things
in a practical queue
things without ruches
in that coneflower hue
but despite all the things
that I really must do
there’s nothing I’d rather
than plant flowers with you

Dog house

C created this doghouse on my computer this afternoon. He’s the first student to try the program at all, and it’s a great start! Can’t wait to get this set up on the ipads.

True or false?

Posted on March 12, 2014 by Keely

Translation: My packet fell in pickle juice. I could read my multiple choice but not my open response. WHAT?!

Nerds

Posted on March 10, 2014 by Keely

I came this close to eating a ladybug just now, thinking it was a stray candy. I noticed just in time to avoid putting it in my mouth. Misery averted! Those things taste terrible.

Lately, whenever I think the word nerd, I hear it in J’s voice. J is a student I taught last year, and at least once a week he comes up to me while I’m reading on lunch duty and comments, “You still reading that book? Reading’s for nerds.” or “What did I tell you about reading?” He’s one of those kids who doesn’t realize he’s going to be smart for the rest of his life and had better get used to it.

I finished A Thousand Splendid Suns today. I’m surprised I didn’t have nightmares last night. It was beautifully written and tragic and hopeful and gut-wrenching and it made me angry at everything and then it made me understand, which made it worse. I didn’t tell C about this one. C is the student I’m closest with: we spend a class period one-on-one each day, usually on geometry, but sometimes on life. I’ve been reading a lot of Alaska memoirs, and he loves to hear about the danger of ice and cold, hunting for moose, and building log cabins. He’s not a big reader, but he’s a great thinker, and I value his perspective. Usually I like to chat about my books with him, but I couldn’t even start that conversation today.

I’m bringing The Great Gatsby to school tomorrow for a student. He came by after school to ask for it, and I had the good sense to marker it onto my arm. He laughed at me, but I know how scattered I can be after school. Another student has my paperback copy of A Game of Thrones and has been spinning theories about Jon Snow’s real parents to me between classes. Sometimes, I really love my job.

Speaking of nerds, check out the photo below: just a typical Sunday night at the homestead. Alyssa came over last night and did work with us. She’s up on the futon, snuggled among her papers with the kitties. Sean’s computer is on the dining room table, and I made a little office nest for myself on the floor. Work work work foreeeever.

Pterodactyls

Posted on March 8, 2014 by Keely

In Arkansas, birds in chevrons unzip the winter sky, always on their way to some finer place. Maybe they’re going someplace with topography. From time to time, on my way home, I’ve seen whole fields carpeted with white acres of snow geese, invariably melted by morning. One day this winter there were hundreds of seagulls fishing in the lake. On Thursday, there were a handful of handsome white pelicans, drifting like dignified marshmallows in the fog over the water.
I had a praxis in Helena this morning, so I took the low road and drove slow with the radio up and the windows down. I’ve come to love country music since I came to live here: I like songs about badass ladies, loving men, bare feet, dirt roads, skinny dipping, hard work, and campfires. I also like bad puns. There are still no leaves on the trees, but today had the feel of a spring Saturday, and with Sean on a field trip, I had the world to myself. After my test, I picked up snacks in town and had a picnic at the rookery. The rookery is miles of pitted dirt from anything, and the sun was shining on Carro’s roof like the bat signal. I heeded the message and hopped up, snacking on chips, basking in the sunshine, reading, gazing up at the blue sky framed by the bare cypress and water tupelo, and tuning in to the barred owls, the absence of human noise, and the occasional cry of a prehistoric monster from the treetops.

We think they’re wood storks, but we haven’t gotten close enough to be sure. They nest in the bald cypress and they are magnificent. They’ve been gone all winter, and I’ll take it as a sign of spring that they’re here again. One of my summer ambitions is to paddle out to their trees and collect a feather. I want to feel the panic and the cool shade on my shoulders as a pterodactyl shadow flows over me, muting the sun for seconds as a time.

P.S. Sean found a dead possum in our garbage can yesterday, and neither of us put it there! It’s a mystery: did it crawl in there before the ice storm and then die of exposure? Did it choke on some particularly nasty bit of refuse?