dig this chick

Today Ruby and I biked to pick Margot up from school. We left at 2:56 because I proved to myself long ago that I can make it in four minutes with both kids in the bike trailer. When it’s just Ruby, well that’s another minute, at least. If I put it in a high gear and let adrenaline power my legs. If I let myself laugh at the gorgeousness of this place, this season. We fly.

In the 40s, today was warmer than it has been. We biked home; I shouted over my shoulder to the girls about my big garden tuck-in plans for the afternoon. These kinds of days aren’t plentiful from here on out. We unraveled with the day’s stories, had a quick snack and boarded a pirate ship.

Ruby directed our mission. Margot and I dug for treasure which we found and heaved overboard. Alice stood watch at the bow and received regular praise for her focus. Ruby sang encouraging anthems while heaving the water from the deck. Ahoy! More cover over here! We hurried because a bad pirate was up on the hill with the wolves. He wanted our treasure.

Margot reminded us that the wolves were on our side. We just had to move fast to get the treasure dug and the evidence covered before the bad pirate and his brood showed up. The wolves helped us with a good distraction. But still, our jewels were at risk. Hand me your sword mama matey! I did. She waved off aggressors. Ruby dug with fury. A storm was coming. I climbed the mast to get a better look. It worked! The crooked pirates had retreated over the hill. We pulled our ship onto land with victory.

And our garden is (mostly) weeded and covered with leaves, ready for this season. Tomorrow, I’d like to plant garlic. Hoping the kids’s imagination can take us on another adventure to get it done…

Thank you so much for your purchases during our sale. Thank you for supporting our family. It was a record-breaking few days for us! I love my work and I love you. We will be happily, busily stitching our way through November, for the love of place. THANK YOU.

:: :: ::

I finish up the night’s dishes by decisively abandoning mid-wash. The kitchen’s life darkens to near-black, the fire’s light rolls into the living room just lighting the deck – enough to see a smooth, even wash of white. The first snow.

My sleepiness dissolves into a surge. I am thankful for the little things that will forever feel child-like. Trampolines, river swims, dancing, snow, hugs from my mom. Ruby is asleep and Andy reads Margot the last page of the last book. She’s tucked under down, eyes heavy. Come on bug! I squeal. Andy raises his eyebrows and grins, wondering what I’m up to and knowing it’s something worth waking up our sleepy kid. Margot leapt into my arms and we ran into fat flakes that plopped on our cheeks and tongues.

The inch melts by the next afternoon and is replaced that evening. And the next. Each morning we wake to our brown and gray world washed clean. I regret not yet raking the leaves onto the garden, not yet sowing garlic, not yet planting those perennials I bought on clearance. But only a little regret. I know I can still make those things happen with just a little more difficulty.

On the third morning, it’s more than just a skiff. The snow is kickable, rollable. We turn our 20 minute-to-school walk into an hour of snowballs, snow angels and snow races. We are quite late but I know we are right on time.

Later that day, all that tangible fun — the snowgirl, the angels, the deer tracks, the snow-weeping branches — erases. But just because we can’t hold it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. And tomorrow promises more impermanent bliss.

I am pretty sure I bent time the last two days. Some highlights:

* Staying up until 2am sewing dog and cat costumes while listening to Heart and Kanye West. Going to bed exhausted and so happy because I couldn’t wait for the girls to wake to their visions realized.

* Taking photos of neighbors and friends wearing my GEOwares in three to seven minute windows around the busyness of everyone’s lives. Literally, I ran for two days.

* Showering, well past the time I ought to have showered. I think it was the best shower of my life.

* Managing to rewrite every single product description, edit 1700 photos, design three ads and ship giant boxes of goods to six different retailers. I am amazed what I can DO with a deadline.

* Making a pretty awesome dinner when “nothing was in the fridge.” Soup of squash, nearly-gone apples, sage, leeks and garlic. Topped with feta.

* Driving to Margot’s school with her Halloween costume, three minutes before her party. The heat on full blast out the dash so her sparkly dog wand would dry. Glitter flurried like a snow storm in my face. I remain glitter-kissed.

* Halloween night.

The costumes were Ruby’s idea: Alice and Sam. But then at the fabric store we saw wings so the costumes evolved into Alive Fairy and Sam Fairy. I made hats using this simple pattern, adding ties and safety pinning the ears (so the hats can be used, earless, for the rest of the season). I made unhemmed a-line dresses by tracing existing items in their closet. They are wearing black leggings and black long sleeved shirts. The girls covered their snow boots with black electrical tape. I made leg warmers: a tube of unhemmed fabric with one end stitched using elastic thread on the bobbin. The elastic clung just under their knees and draped over the boots. And the wands! Sticks, black construction paper, mod podge, glitter.

I closed my etsy shop for the first time since it opened in 2007. For the last two weeks, I’ve tidied my studio, purged old inventory and just generally cleaned everything up online, in shop and in my brain. Holy smokes, it was a lot of work. I’ve realized a few exciting things about my business and where it is headed. I will share more with you after I decomputerize my eyeballs for a few days.

I get asked a lot about how I fit work into my days. I work with my kids. This means I am bendy and sometimes choose to abandon projects when I am in a flurry of momentum and creativity. I often work early or late. When I can heave myself out of bed, 4-7am is a reliable work window for me. But mostly? Mostly we are all together when I work. The kids have a play space in my studio. They draw, write letters and read books. They sew little pillows and hearts. They watch Wild China (have you seen that documentary series? So great. I want to go to Tibet). They help keep the chickens out of the sewing room and snuggle our pets on the couch. They sit on my lap and sew things that you order, they seal envelopes and stick mailing labels.

I need to do a proper studio tour! Will do.

Andy is the foundation, catching my ideas and encouraging me to lean into work when I feel the drive. He also models with humor even though he doesn’t like it at all (but he’s so smokin’ hot!). Our partnership is essential to my work; we pass the Homestead Baton to each other around our creative, athletic and emotional pursuits. And, while he isn’t behind the computer or behind the sewing machine, he is behind this girl and our family — at the heart of dig. I am thoroughly grateful for my man.

Aaaaaaannnnnnnd my shop is now open with a big ol’ two day sale! How about some early holiday gift canoodling with this Montana gal and her family business?

>> SHOP <<

My favorite business photos are the images that don’t make it onto my shop page. Outtakes are the storytellers.

For nearly two decades, my husband and his childhood friends have been wading through a certain stretch of river where goose-sized brown trout swim. Girlfriends began joining in some time ago. We became wives. And, now, a growing posse of kids knows this magical, cold stretch of dark blue in the Big Hole Valley.

It was cold last weekend. Hard to peel away from the fire’s warmth at night, we’d hold our breath as we slid into our zero degree bags waiting for body heat and down to work its magic. The kids and husband slept great. Me? Not so much. With temps in the mid-20s I kept waking to check on Margot and Ruby, who were toasty warm every single time. Nonetheless, I continued to wake and check à la newborn times.

On the second night, our friends went to town for dinner while our family made burritos by the fire. Our daughters fell asleep on our laps in their puffy coats, pjs and headlamps. We talked, hugged by black and constellations. Andy rose every few minutes with Margot cradled in one strong arm to adjust the burning wood, to encourage the warmth.

Dry timbers catch and burn. Bright and hot, passing fire to surrounding sticks. The irregular cackling like high fives cheering flames rhythmically pumping upward. It slows and slows into glowing, charred remains. Still with life, it doesn’t take much work to rekindle the fire’s productivity — one stir, one more log and it’s ablaze once more. The fire will continue to burn with a little attention, respect, effort and finesse.

I talked with a friend yesterday who, the week before, felt exhilarated that her baby had been sleeping through the night. She was excited for the new phase when another turned up: teething which interrupted coveted sleep. It’s the way with parenting, right? Just when our family jingle is in tune, the chord changes.

Something extinguishes or burns too hot. We rearrange ourselves, finding that sweet spot of comfort. We get in there to shuffle our pile, to turn and move things around. We add fuel and settle in until the next change demands we rise and reconfigure our energy source.

:: SO thankful for the sun’s warmth.

:: Ruby makes nests, Andy fishes.

:: Tank top weather in the afternoons.

:: Lassoing my kids to brush teeth.

:: Wading with Ruby on my back, Andy in front with Margot on his back.

:: The rare snap of Andy and me, enthusiastically taken by Ruby.

:: Wandering.

:: Morning warm up with my always-early-risin’ girl.

:: Riverside, in current.

:: Catch and release. Ruby’s favorite minutes from the weekend.

We are in a comfortable parenting place right now; our fire well-stoked.

Margot is passionate about reading and math, spending every night sounding-out and adding. She needs to talk a lot about every thing she sees and hears. Last night we sat on the bathroom floor for an hour discussing different kinds of schooling, what it would be like if we could fly by pushing a button, how kangaroos grow babies and why our bodies need protein. Ruby’s daily food intake is double that of every other human in our home. She skips everywhere she goes. She is a sponge to Margot’s reading and math, which knocks me over with amazement every single day. Yesterday, on her own, she wrote the names of our entire family. Both sisters can fill their own water bottles and usually make the choice to talk instead of hit.

I am enjoying this life season, excited for the next iteration of discomfort and subsequent ignition.

Getting outside is my favorite family activity. The kids vibrant creativity and inquisitive, slow approach to every little thing. The uninterrupted time to just be. Together. I find that when we are home, I fill quiet spaces with chores. And I stack them on top of each other. I check email while drinking my coffee, I unload the dishwasher while Margot tells me about her day at school.

When we are hiking or swimming or skiing or biking or camping — we connect, deeply. We connect with ourselves, with each other and with the natural world creating a transcendent boom. Every step into the simple, lovely act of existing outside together pushes us into ourselves and opens us to each other.

As Ruby’s carved pumpkin’s smile sags on our deck and as I sit by the now every-morning stove fire, as we prepare for a very frosty camping trip this coming weekend, I am sharing images from our August car camping adventure. The one where it was 100 degrees, we drove through forest fires, swam in rivers and slept in our bathing suits. They’ve been patiently waiting in a folder (ahem, next to 23 other folders) to have the stage here. It’s time.

I have been thinking a lot about what it is that I hope for my children to be or have. I want my daughters to pursue life with authenticity and altruism. I hope they are lifelong students, leaning into beautiful, powerful, fulfilling, inclusive, productive acts of love. I want them to appreciate, feel and engage with great passion and integrity, even when – especially when – it’s hard. I want them to find abundance right here, now.

And I want family – both by blood and by choice – to hug my daughters’ commitment to happiness and truth-seeking. I want their relationship to always be as real and important as the hearts that beat in their chests.

trip deets:

Lewis and Clark Caverns Campground
Lewis and Clark Caverns
Varney Bridge Campground
Virginia City ghost town
car camping kit and checklist