Father's Day

Yup, this is how us Americans eat every day.  Just another day in the life of a public school teacher's family.  Actually, this is the first time I have cooked live crustaceans as an adult!  I had a moment of sheer panic before I cooked the first one, but thinking about how much these things cost motivated me to get it done!  The reason I picked these for Father's Day dinner was because a local grocery store had them at an incredible sale price.  So I don't think this will be a part of my regular menu!

After this, the story is too messy to tell with pictures! 

Juhannus

Happy midsummer! Ihanaa valon juhlaa kaikille!

Kotitöitä

Most days I'm overwhelmed by housework, especially the number of hours I need to spend in the kitchen preparing meals and cleaning up after them. I wouldn't mind it as much if the kitchen was on the sunny side of the house, so I could make the most of all this abundant light that is nursing away our state of deprivation which developed over the winter. But day after day I find myself standing on the North side much longer than I would like. To make it more complicated, my younger children are at an age when "helping" is a favorite activity. The truth is, though, that their "help" often creates even more mess, and that we could move on to enjoy the lovely day outdoors a little sooner, if they would just get out of the way for a minute. One solution is to take the "helping mess" outside. It's astonishing how participating in real or even almost-real work brightens their spirits, and I don't have to dry the floor afterwards. It also helps to get out the vintage aprons (and if anyone recognizes them, I hope you don't mind we are using them)! Now, ready for some vigorous dish washing?
 
The room where I blog is also on the North side of the house, which is disturbing my blogger's enthusiasm a bit. So if you don't hear from me, I'm probably prioritizing my maximum dosage of light. I'll still try to check in with you every week, but for the rest of the summer it's going to be whenever!

Brace yourself....

I could tell you the long story, or I could cut to the chase since I'm sure you all just want to move on along to the super cute pictures.  Basically, we discovered that a litter of kittens had been born in our crawl space!  My first attempt was to open up the trap door, because I knew it was very close to where the kittens were, but a long, low growl from mama stopped me in my tracks!  Since no one in this house is particularly fond of cats (or the diseases that stray cats carry), I put a $50 reward on Facebook for the first person to get the kittens out.  That night, they were out!!

After contacting every cat shelter and rescue organization in the metro area, I found the Feral Cat Coalition, which put me in touch with a volunteer who would be able to care for the kittens until they were big enough to go the Humane Society.  They were only about 1 pound (4 weeks old), but they need to be 2 pounds (8 weeks old).  I had been giving them kitty formula, but the volunteer agreed only to take the kittens if I could trap the mother.  The mother would be with the babies for the next month, then spayed, shot up, tested for diseases, and then I would have to re-release her at our house.

Well, sure enough, mama kitty heard her kittens in the cat carrier NEXT to the trap, but she wasn't interested in the food in the trap, so she curled up in a ball next to her kittens, just outside the carrier.  Cute, but not helpful.  A few more minutes passed, and finally, she was in the trap!  We took them all to the volunteer, and watched mama and babies reunite, then said our goodbyes.  Then, home, to obsessively scrub, bleach, and scrub again the bathtub where the kitties had lived through their wild 48-hour adventure.

You can see my preference for the one that looks like a little tiger...his name was Daisy for 2 days. 

Sniff!

Valkea meri

 After pink fluffy wings came pink fluffy flowers. After pink fluffy flowers came pink buds that turned into a sea of white blossoms. This is a place we visit every now and then, an old house by the sea and its garden of apple trees, a space sometimes used for community events and free for locals to enjoy any time. I first discovered this exceptionally impressive bloom one sunny evening last week. When I returned the next day just before noon with my camera, the bloom was still there, but the nuances created by a setting sun were not. When enjoying the world through a lens, I love my mornings and my evenings, but mid day I find harsh and flat. But I decided to make the most of it anyway! Here it is, and for the full effect imagine wind from the sea and an unceasing buzz of bees.

Lunch date

Yesterday, I took the boy to town for his first real in-a-barbershop haircut, then went out for lunch.  The barbershop was a small-town two-chair kind of an outfit, and it was a real treat for me as well, since I am normally the family barber!  And lunch was right next door for the boy's favorite food - shrimp! And please don't be alarmed by the portion size, non-Americans, it was an adult portion to be taken home to daddy!  Ok, maybe even for an adult, it was a little excessive for lunch!