And that's why I like snow.

Our adventure today begins with Xyla, tired of watching movies, grabbing my hand and leading me over to the front door.  She says "open door."  I knew this moment was coming.  We didn't have anything else to do, or be responsible for.  She was dressed in the sweatshirt her Aunt Brandy embroidered for her and her tangerine capri pants.  I wondered if she would try to walk out there with no shoes on so I opened the door.  

She got right up next to the door jamb, then turned to me and wanted me to pick her up.  She insisted but I told her that if she was going to go outside that she was going to have to walk out there on her own.  (I wasn't wearing any shoes either and I knew this wasn't going to be a two minute deal.)  She looked out the door and thought about it for a minute.  She said, "I need shoes."

I said, "very good, now where are they?"  She pointed to her pink and white tennis shoes and I closed the door, picked up some socks and her shoes and started putting them on her.  I grabbed my own pair of shoes, knowing this was going to go further than the driveway.  

We walked out the door and around the front of the car parked in the driveway.  She is very nervous about ice and there was quite a bit of it on the other side of the car.  I modeled a penguin walk and she followed.  Now before you say anything about the penguin walk let me ask you, have you ever seen a penguin fall on the ice?  So it works.  Stop laughing.

Once she got to the other side of the ice patch she said, "there no more."  I told her no there wasn't anymore ice.  So we walked down the driveway.  At the bottom of the driveway there is a river of slush.  I didn't even check to see what the temperature was, I didn't have to.  If the snow was melting this quickly then it was over 40 which is good enough for me.  The sun was warm on our shoulders. 

We started to walk down the street.  We made it to the mail boxes.  I am glad someone had the kind heart to shovel out a path for the mailman, if they can't get to the box - they don't deliver the mail.  That is a bad policy when 20 houses in the subdivision get their mail from the same cluster of boxes.  

We wandered around the cement pad where the mail boxes sit.  I had to explain to Xyla that we didn't have our key so we couldn't check our mail unless we went back to the house to get said key.  She wasn't having any of that.  She found a key on the ground.  It was the key to one of the large parcel boxes at the end of the row.  Of course it was the box with the number that was hard to reach because the plow (that came through at 9:30 at night) managed to pile it all, right there.  I reached over there an put the key in the box.  That is how the mail man gets the keys back.  I really should have checked to see if there was anything in the box since now it was open, but then what would I do with whatever was inside.  (I hope they get their mail.)

We continued down the street and came to the place where the subdivision turns into a field.  We turned around and started down the other cul-de-sac street.  We got to the bottom of the turnabout and she discovered slush.  After a few minutes of stomping around in it she stopped.  Set her foot down.  Thought about.  Lifted her foot up.  Thought about it.  Then said, "it making water."  I told her, "yes, when ice melts it turns into water."  Ironically, the same snow turns to water theme that was on The Magic School Bus today.  

We made our way through the "squishy slushy" back to our yard.  It was a bit of a struggle because she was just sure I was going to make her go inside.  I got her convinced that once we got back to the house we could make a snowman.  Then there was a little less talk and a lot more walk.  

I didn't even go in the house when we first got back to the yard.  I made a snow ball and plopped it in the snow.  I started to roll it.  She was intrigued.  I told her we had to roll it in other snow to make a ball.  When the snow is that slushy, it doesn't roll as well.  I decided that the snowman would be no bigger than her.  Mainly because it doesn't take a whole lot of height to impress an almost three year old and I didn't want to have to heft the dreaded second ball on top of the first.  It only took two swipes of her hands in the snow for her to decide it was too cold to put her hands in.  She was torn because she really wanted to make a snowman but she really didn't like her hands to be cold.  I asked her if she might like to go inside to get some gloves.  She shook her head yes.  

We went inside, I left the front door open so she would know that I intended to take her right back outside as soon as she was properly adorned.  

She shot out of the house, very excited that we were going to make this snowman.  (Going inside was an excellent opportunity for me to grab the camera too. )  Let me back up.  Just before Christmas we got an e-Christmas card from a relative that was a little bit of a game.  Woodland and domestic animals making a snowman.  She played that nearly nonstop and mentioned it at least 15 times every time I even looked sideways at the computer.  Add to that the snowmen at the stores and on her shirt and and everywhere else she looked . . . well you get that she knew about the snowman, right?  And why she was so excited to make one.  You know since the first snow was mid January and it didn't stick.  this was the first real snow that was snowman worthy.

The rolling of the first ball wasn't going so well.  It wasn't so much a ball as a lopsided lump.  I set it and started filling out the ball by taking handfuls of snow and patting them on to shape the ball.  It didn't take her long to pick up what I was up to.

The top ball was hardest to shape properly.  I find with smaller snowman size, judgement on ball size is a bit skewed.  In this case, lumpy and slightly off kilter.  It was too late though we were on a roll.  I tried out two leaves for eyes but shortly learned that Oklahoma, being the windy place that it is, was not going to let this be a 'natural' snowman.

The sucker she had when we started this adventure was abandoned in the first slush stop.  She handed it to me and never thought about it again.  I ate the rest of it.  I make no excuses, sometimes you have to take one for the team.  Consequently, the stick made a decent mouth.

Xyla was very serious about making sure her snowman had all the parts a person is supposed to have.  (Don't worry, she isn't aware of the major anatomical difference between boys and girls yet.)

Sn-yo-gee Bear?

She was very careful about the details.  We added arms and ears and snow eyes (after the leaves blew away) and twig eyebrows.  Look at this girl crafting the snow.  She was so serious too.  There was one place in the yard where it was apparent that someone in the neighborhood thought the drift in front of the house (3 feet) was steep enough to serve as a sledding hill.  Of course you can also tell that in order to sled, you should actually have a sled.  Sledding on your butt won't get you far unless the snow is firmly packed and this snow was very much not.  What I am trying to say is there are random foot prints and then butt prints that scoot about 4 feet. There are only two tracks.

However, there was still one spot in the yard that was broad and white and clean and just hollering for snow angels.  I asked Xyla if she wanted to make a snow angel and she said no.  I decided that I would show her what a snow angel is.  Then she just had to make one too.  (This is where my camera battery died.)  

Then it was back to the snow man.   She knocked off his arms.  Popped off his eyes.  Ooops-ed his ears and he was back to the generic three ball shape.  She got this look on her face.  She put her arms up for me to pick her up so I did.  I asked her if she was done for today and she shook her head yes.  I trapsed through the snow packing my baby girl and headed in the house.  I set her down for just a minute and she started crying saying, "snowman . . . SNOman . . . SNOWMAN."  I told her that we would go out and play with the snowman again tomorrow.  

She was really upset.  I haven't seen her really emotionally hurt and crying very many times.  I asked her if she missed the snowman.  She nodded her teary head yes.  I told her we would go out and see the snowman first thing in the morning.  Then I held her for a long time.  I set her down on the couch with a pillow and her blanket and a cup of milk.  In less than three minutes, she was fast asleep.  I hope she dreams of dancing with her snowman.  Good night, snow angel.

Oh, what a day!

It's probably my fault really.  I didn't want to cook anything for lunch so we went to McDonalds for a 'cheeburger'.  I decided the we could stop and play in the playland today too.  In this town I realize it is risking pink eye and myriad other communicable diseases but it is also the divorced single dad mecca of the world on Sunday morning.  Supposed to be anyway.

We go inside and belly up to the counter.  I order a cheeseburger happy meal.  The guy looks at me and says, "what?" like he'd never heard of a happy meal which can't possibly be since he was a toy shy of one.  I asked again for a cheeseburger happy meal with a chocolate milk.  He is quiet and doesn't move for an uncomfortable amount of time.  I worried that I might be getting dive bombed by bees (in January).  The he looks at me (with my daughter right next to me dressed like this only wingless)

and he asks me if I want a girl or boy toy in the happy meal.  I almost . . . almost said, "really!?"  but I am still practicing using filters so I said, "a girl toy please."  Then I asked for a number one with a Dr. Pepper with no ice.  He said, "A Dr. Pepper with what?"  In my mind I am thinking NO ICE, NO ICE, NO ICE!  I said, "no ice."  Which doesn't matter anyway since I fill the cup myself.  He asks for my name.  Keep in mind I am the only customer at the counter at this point.  He writes my name (spells it Krystal) on my receipt.  

He assembles the happy meal, puts the chocolate milk on the tray.  He assembles the number one meal then looks at me straight in the face and yells across the lobby "Crystal?"  Again, I filtered out, "REALLY?!"  I took the meal and headed over to the drink station.  I peek through the window of the play land to see if there are any tables and there are not.  Tables full of cute little families with 2 or 3 kids each.  I tell Xyla that we will eat first then go in and play. 

She was doing so good up until this point.  She sat quietly, she didn't want to eat.  Which is impossible because she was definitely hungry.  A little boy sitting one table away is smiling at her trying to make her smile.  She starts getting grumpy.  I presume because some little boy she didn't know was staring at her.  Finally she eats about half of the burger and a few fries.  That is a win as far as I am concerned.  I look over into the play land to see if any of the tables had cleared out.  The little boy was digging through two happy meal boxes that one of the 'cute little families' left behind.  (They were not so cute anymore, that's just rude.)  

The girl who looks far too young to be the mother of this child, but could have been, is watching japanese animae on her laptop.  I am reading the words as they are going by and realize two boys are about to . . . well, lets just say I was looking for a way to get my stuff together quickly and get Xyla in the other room.  I try to get the girl's attention to let her know that her ward is digging through someone else's trash.  It takes four tries for me to finally get her attention.  That's when I looked at what was on her tray.  Breakfast wrappers.  It was nearly 1:00 p.m. by then.  They had been there since at least 11:30 (that's when they switch from breakfast to lunch here).  I tell her that he is scavanging and she gets up and goes in to get him. 

She sits him down on the chair beside her a proceeds to ignore him in favor of her animae show.  I finally get all of our stuff gathered up and we go into the play land.  By this time there is only one family left in there.  Three or four adults and about 4 kids altogether.  They start to gather their things and their kids to leave.  Xyla gets about three turns up in the play land tube and gets lost.  She starts crying because she can't find the slide.  She adores the slide.  Without even asking one of the adults heads up the tube after her.  While I am grateful, I really wish he would have let me go up after her.  The only thing that makes getting lost scarier is having a stranger grab ahold of you and tell you where to go.  She was genuinely scared when she finally made it down the slide.  

I held her until everyone else left.  Then the little boy appears out of nowhere and decides he wants to chat.  Apparently he is there with his sister because his parents were of dumpster diving somewhere.  What's more disturbing is not that they have to dumpster dive it's that they do it often enough their three year old knows what it means.  I kept an eye on the sister because she clearly did not realize that he had left her side again.  I kept a mental note of how long it took her to realize he was gone.  He was in there a good 15 minutes before she even looked up from her show.  Do you know what can happen to a kid in 15 minutes?  I am scared for this little boy.  He's congenial, he's adorable, he can slip away unnoticed.  

He is really lucky that a bad person didn't show up there today.  Finally she looks up from her show and panics for two seconds and looks out into the play land.  She looks back at her show, she didn't even locate him before she decided the computer was more important.  She didn't get up.  She didn't come looking for him.  She looked up again.  I signaled to her that he was in my eyesight and that he was ok.  It is not my responsibility to watch him but I wasn't going to leave until they did. Clearly, she was not going to make sure he was safe.  

More kids and another family show up.  The boys roughhousing made Xyla nervous but she was all about going down the slide at this point and she wasn't going to let some noisy boys get to her.  Finally the girl packed up her laptop and called to the boy so I gathered my things too.  It took me a bit of time to get Xyla out of the tube because I made the mistake of telling her it was time to go.  Mental note: never say that to a kid at the top of the tube.  I kept telling her to come down, she kept saying, "I can't come down."  I said, "yes you can."  One of the older boys volunteered to go up after her.  She finally came down.  I had to juggle her, the rest of her happy meal and my drink out the door.  She fussed and started to cry, I told her that doesn't work on mommy, she needed to remember that.  She stopped crying.  We got in the car and went to Old Navy to bum around and came home with the fairy wings.

We had kind of an interesting day.

It's a numbers game.

866 - Number of envelopes I stuffed with wildlife calendars today.

2 - Number of tires on the back of my car.

30 - Number of minutes it took Walmart to put said tires on my car.

0 - Number of other people in line for tires ahead of me at 12:30 p.m. on a Monday.

152 - Number of dollars it cost to buy tires.

5536 - likely number of snowflakes that fell last night.

7722 - likely number of snowflakes that fell later today.

1 - Number of small children that live in my home who insisted on playing in the above mentioned 13,258 snowflakes that fell.

20 - Number of degrees it was outside when my neighbor informed me that it was freezing outside.

2 - Number of comments I could have made about that but chose to filter instead.

15 - Number of minutes before she started to avoid pooping.

Infinite - Number of times she screamed that she didn't want to go inside.

1 - Number of cups of hot chocolate it took to make up for it.

1 - Number of cars in the school parking lot she claimed as hers.

0 - Number of cars in the school parking lot that actually were hers.

4 - Number of times I have cleaned my carpet this evening.

1 - Number of moms who live in my house who are ecstatic that their kid loves snow.  Even if there's only a skiff of it.

Happy Freezing Drizzle Day.

High Tunnels in Practice

Lisa Becklund tells Soil Conservation Technician Amanda Zarek and District Conservationist Nicholas Jones how many pounds of greens she was able to harvest last week. In her existing high tunnel she is growing broccoli rabe, mizuna, red chard, Fort Hook chard, a few varieties of lettuce, arugula, spinach bok choy, red choy, cilantro, and Russian red kale.

As a certified organic producer with few options, Lisa Becklund says her egg laying chickens are a good solution to abating pest problems. She says once the crop season is over she puts her chickens in the high tunnel for about three days and the birds eliminate any bugs that may have snuck in.


Lisa Becklund laid her coat over the edge of the back of her Chevy truck parked at the end of the structure she aimed to finish on her own December 7, 2010. While the temperature outside was barely breaking 30 degrees by 9:30 a.m., the work she’d already done warmed her up enough to make her shed a layer. The ribbing of the seasonal high tunnel went up over the weekend in about 3 ½ hours with the help of five friends. Becklund was ready to finish construction by placing the door of her moveable structure. For Becklund it has been a long process to become a small scale farmer. It started with a love of food being born and raised in the restaurant business, moved to a career as a chef, grew to an interest in buying from farmers markets and visiting the farmers she met there.

She said, “I liked the ultimate control they had over the food and how it was raised and for the animals, what kind of life they had. I didn’t realize, before then, that I had that kind of control, that I had a choice.” That is when Becklund chose to buy a few chickens, a couple of sheep and two milk goats just to see if she would like being a farmer.

Seven years later, Becklund has abandoned the resturaunt business and is involved in a community supported agriculture group. Her operation is called Living Kitchen and is a 65 acre farm just outside of Depew, Okla. She has 60 sheep, 20 goats and 250 chickens. She provides food for the families of 20 members on a subscription basis. The families pay upfront and, as the season continues, Becklund provides $30-45 dollars worth of food she produces every two weeks.

She realizes the families take a financial risk when they trust her to grow their food but it provides her the motivation to make sure the guaranteed customer base is there for her the next year by delivering what she promises. She says the benefit of community supported agriculture is that she knows how much to plant, how much to harvest and she doesn’t take home any of the produce. She says her subscribers have become like family to her.

Becklund started selling produce with one small table at a farmer’s market, now she has a double booth. She said she felt confident in her ability to move to the subscription farming model because she made it through last year. Last year was her biggest year but also her hardest, she said. Starting with the rain in August, she said, “(The struggles) happened one right after the next. It was a really great learning experience but I thought I was going to lose my mind. I actually got through it in the black so I felt like, I have arrived. I get it now.”

When she heard through Cherry Street Farmer’s Market Association that an NRCS cut off deadline to sign up for seasonal high tunnels through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program Organic Initiative was the next day, she dropped everything and gathered all the information she would need to sign up for the practice. The practice is targeted at producers who are transitioning to organic or already are certified organic producers, which Becklund is. Becklund was aware of the great benefits of using seasonal high tunnels because she already uses one to improve the quality of her produce.

Even though everything outside in December looks bleak, there are, as Becklund says, 960 square feet of good nutrition growing in her high tunnel. She has six rows of greens of diverse variety. She says winter is the easiest time to grow and these structures extend her growing season. She is currently growing cool season vegetables that do better in the winter months anyway, but the plants like the 20 degree higher temperature difference the high tunnel provides.

The hardest but most important part, she says, is squaring the structure. She said, “I use a very, very expensive six row seeder, I can’t use the seeder if the inside is not square. The stability (the squaring provides) is crucial to withstand the winds in Oklahoma, we have pulled poles out and it has taken us eight hours sometimes just to square the thing, now we can square it out in 15 minutes. We couldn’t believe it, we were like, what? It’s square? Let’s check it again.”

For her operation this year, her goal is to provide the families with 75% of their nutritional needs. An added high tunnel could help her provide a wider variety of produce to better reach that goal. This time of year each subscriber receives several pounds of greens, cuts of lamb, yogurt and some form of goat cheese, two dozen eggs and goats milk. With the food, Becklund also provides recipes to the families, which she says is her added benefit that gives her a bit of an edge. She says drop-off days are her favorite days, “I am so proud, I actually get to see the fruits of my labor right there. They bring their kids, it’s just really exciting and really kind of cool to see that they are really interested in food.“

Several months out of the summer Becklund has some help from college interns, but for the most part she runs the operation by herself. She said she only produces for 20 subscribers because she needs to keep the operation sustainable by just one person. High tunnel structures provide her a way to rotate her crops to keep vital nutrients in the soil, but are also easy enough that she is able to do most of the work setting it up, alone. As she pounded the stakes to secure the door she said she was struggling with whether to put the plastic over the ribbing because it was an excellent day for it. She said that part is a three person job, mainly because of the somewhat constant 5-10 mph wind in Oklahoma.

Pest management is one challenge any certified organic producer faces. There are only a couple of chemicals producers can use to control pests. She says that she has been really lucky over the years and has not experienced a pest problem. She manages pests by turning her chickens loose in the structure when the crop season has ended. She said, “They scratch up and get every known little bug out of there in about three days.”

She said it should be written somewhere that if someone builds a high tunnel in Oklahoma it is best to orient it east/west rather than north/south otherwise the wind will rip it out of the ground. This kind of suggestion is important feedback because the high tunnel practice under the Organic EQIP program is part of a three year study to verify if high tunnels are effective in reducing pesticide use, keeping vital nutrients in the soil, and extending the growing season.

Into the second year of the study, Becklund is among the first to finish building the structure under the program. With only 18 structures in planning and $1.5 million funding the program, there is still a lot of room for certified organic producers or producers transitioning to organic to be a part of the program. The next sign-up deadline is March 4, 2011, to be considered for funding in 2011. Becklund endorses the practice wholeheartedly, she said, “I love these high tunnels, they are fantastic. It is a really great solution to farming in Oklahoma.”

How to make a memory.

It was a real shock for me to learn that not everyone's parents believed in them the way my parents believed in me.  Whatever thing intrigued me they would make sure I got enough of a chance to experience it that I could make an informed decision about whether it was something I'd like to do with my life.

I remember a flying lesson my dad arranged for me.  They took me to Seattle for a cattle call chance at being a model, my mom even took my head shots.  They sent me to Washington DC for a week to see if journalism might interest me.  I knew that if I thought I could do something, they thought I was right.  I know how much that confidence in me inspired the confidence I have in myself.  Tonight, the eve of Thanksgiving I want everyone to know that I am thankful for parents who believed in me.  I am thankful that I had that example to learn from to be able to give my child experiences she might otherwise have missed.  Even if that experience is as simple as making a chocolate pecan pie - at the age of 2.  When other people might tell her she isn't big enough, I want her to know that I believe in her.  

That said, this is one heck of a good looking pie.  Not only was she making a pie, we were making a memory.

Somnambulation.

This is how the day usually ends.  Her refusing to go to sleep and then like a light, she's out.  As a mental note though, she may start sleep walking at some point.  It isn't outside the scope of reality.  I used to talk in my sleep all the time.  You can ask my sister, she will tell you the funniest things Crystal has said in her sleep.  I hear my girl sometimes talking in her sleep.  I'll have to keep an eye on her just to be safe.  Can't have her wander the neighborhood at night not knowing that she's out there.

Other than that, it is pretty easy to keep this kid entertained.  A $1 balloon with a dump truck on it from the dollar store, a few kitchen items to stack.  She has a whole room full of toys . . . that she rarely ever plays with.

I am pretty sure I should have been mad that she took all of the pots and pans out of this cabinet.  I should be mad that she was using my glass vegetable tray as a sled.  Coincidentally, if you are going to ask my sister about me talking in my sleep, ask about the vegetable tray.  The truth is, I needed to take the stuff out of there and wash it anyway.  A cricket died in there and I have been putting it off.  This just makes it so that I do what I am supposed to be doing.  That's all.

Like most kids, she has an active imagination.  One that leaves her using boxes as play things.  I am a sucker though whether it is hide and seek in the box from someone's microwave or playing banana phones in the middle of Walmart, I like to encourage her creativity.  I think she gets that from me, too.

She cried.

She cried so hard today.  It broke my heart.  I am assured by friends who have gone through the same thing, it's only the beginning.  Xyla is getting to an age where she knows what a birthday is.  She knows what Christmas is.  She looked around the park the other day and saw all the other kids playing with their daddies and I knew that she knew something was missing.  It's not like she hasn't seen her dad since then.  She has seen him.  She also knows inside that he is supposed to be where she needs him to be when she needs him to be there, and he's not.

I have been battling the last few months about how much and of what to write.  There are consequences when you talk about your ex online.  That is why I haven't written anything.  The idea that he could use any part of what I say in court has consumed me.  

I knew this would be coming.  I knew she would start to know.  I have to admit, I didn't prepare myself for it.  I thought I did, but I didn't.  I don't know what to tell her.  She's 2 1/2 and she is understanding concepts I didn't teach her about.  Maybe it's my fault.  I have done everything I could to make sure she knew who he was.  Now, she is finding out who he is.  I don't want him to break her heart.  

I really don't think he understood that this is what he was choosing when he chose to leave me when I was 3 months pregnant.  How do I protect her?  How do I tell her he made a different choice?  How do I tell her the truth without hurting her?  This is the hard part about being a single mom.  That is why I am sharing it now.  I know how she feels.  I know how she is going to feel.  I knew it would happen, how do I explain that?  

I have met my biological father, but I have never known him.  Instead I got a wonderful step -father.  It feels weird to write it that way.  I haven't known any other father.  I didn't have to bear what my daughter is going through because I had a choice, the same way my biological father had a choice.  When the time came for me to decide if I wanted my father in my life, I chose not to contact him.  There was nothing positive he could add to my life.  Only pain.  I didn't want the pain.  I don't want if for her.  

Similarly, her dad has only met his father once.  He had an idea in his mind about what his life would have been like if his father had been around.  When his father came he told him all the ways he could have been different but he just couldn't.  Even though he knew his son was out there he couldn't change his life to be there for him.  

Now here I am, at this cross road.  I just keep praying that God shows me the way.  That God comforts me.  That he gives me the courage to walk the path he's given me.  That he gives me to gentleness to help my daughter make sense of it all.  That she finds comfort in my arms.

She cried herself to sleep on the way home.  It didn't take long for her to be asleep.  She was already overly tired.  Friends, please pray for me.  Pray that God gives me the right words to comfort her and that he helps me keep a tight rein on the ones I want to say.