Vignettes of home

The Hall family has been camped on Bainbridge for almost 2 weeks now, but time has passed in the blink of an eye. I have been meeting local mamas, Nick has been getting work done with his creative partner who lives on Bainbridge, Finn has been having a blast at the local toddler gym and park and Poppie has been growing. One or all of us have been back in the city roughly every other day for one reason or another, but keep finding reasons to go back to the Island for another few days. It feels like an extended vacation and I think none of us want this vacation to end.

On our visit home today, I noticed that one of our chickens was listless and her comb was drained of color. Nick came out and lifted her up and she was light as a feather and super skinny. I felt bad that she had deteriorated while we have been gone, but both of our first instinct was to put her out of her misery then and there. We didn't, but the experience made me realize that Nick and I would both have been good farmers and in another life and that we are usually always on the same page, even in weird situations. This is one ingredient that makes our relationship so amazing.

The garden is humming along without us, though I have so much of a jungle growing in my front and side gardens that even my Dad has started complaining about walking up the front steps. Beware, the wisteria may grab you and coil you in her viney grasp. And I am not kidding.

We are having a true indian summer here in the Northwest. Today, we were all dressed in tanks and shorts and it would have been a good day for a swim in Puget Sound if we weren't all suffering from colds or in the city. This weekend the rains are supposed to come, which means chantrelle mushrooms should be popping up everywhere. It will be Finn's first mushroom season where he understands what he is picking. He is quite the natural hunter-gatherer. At preschool, he showed his class what berries could be eaten and which couldn't on a walk in a local wild area, impressing both the teachers. And us parents.

Someone mentioned that the newborn stage of family life lasts only a short season and to enjoy it as such. I like to think of our lives as seasons. In our family history, this time will be defined as a season of Poppie, of Nick's first true taste of filmmaking, of a boy now talking in full sentences, of the richness added by daily doses of grandparents, of Bainbridge and walks in warm autumnal air. I hope we all look back on this season as one of the best, most defining seasons of our lives.

I know I will.

xoxo