On Dirt

Dirt. It's everywhere here. The wonderful and terrible thing about living in the woods is the dirt that just sits around. On the ground, on the cars, on the porch, in the air when my kids are throwing it. On my kids. In my kids' mouths. Yesterday was a dirt day.

I was hanging on of my eternal loads of laundry yesterday afternoon (I am eternally pregnant and eternally doing laundry) when I got a little caught up in the beauty of the moment and abandoned laundry hanging to take pictures of the light coming through the many-coloured shirts. It's beautiful here. I mean, really, really beautiful. Living at the Land is like living in a forest campground, and you can get used to it, which is the sad thing. Like, Redwoods? Oh yeah (yawn) they're pretty big. Lately I've been trying to notice. The way the sun hits the tall redwood trees that line our property late in the afternoon, the miniature grapes we have growing for the first season in the garden, the light everywhere, shining through the trees.

Anyways. I finished my little photo shoot and turned back to my laundry to find that a little elf (i.e. the YaYa Sister) had thrown a nice hefty handful of dirt on top of my clean wet laundry. How lovely.

Also, yesterday, I proudly gave YaYa her most elaborate hairstyle yet, which cost us a lot in tears and effort. She looked so amazingly cute and edible, all day. But, while I was sitting cross-legged on my porch, cooking on our camp-stove, and Kid A and YaYa were making dust cakes, somehow another nice hefty handfuls of dust and tiny stones made it onto the top of YaYa's head. I'm not sure who did it, all I know is that Kid A didn't do it, and I didn't do it. It remains a mystery. And it was impossible to get out. She looked like she was carrying half the dirt in Texas on her head. My girly girl.

But, all in all, since it provides the nutrients for our strawberries, which are the best strawberries that I've ever tasted in my life, and our grapes, which are so beautiful that they shouldn't be eaten, I'm fine with dirt. The dirt can stay. Until the rain comes, and then it should find another place to be for a few months.