House O' Sullivans

Growing up, the pea patch was always my favorite. I love peas straight from the garden. This year we soaked our peas in an inoculant--nitrogen fixing bacteria--before we planted them and wow! We harvested more than we ever have. Bags and bags and bags. We had planned to go camping in Maple Canyon with some friends just two days after we got home from goat packing, so time was limited for harvesting. I ended up pulling up all off the pea plants the Thursday morning that we planned on leaving, piling them in the shade and setting up a sweat shop to keep the kids occupied while I finished packing (or re-packing I should say) our camping gear. Some of the kids from the neighborhood came over to play and I employed them too. Ha, ha! They had great fun and even made up their own pea harvesting song! Neighbor kid sweat shop payment was a giant bag of peas. Our fridge was entirely full of peas!! Pea pickin' with the neighbors. Once she woke up from her morning nap, Lindy got a...

Before I even had kids I knew what kind of family I wanted. While still single, I met a family while I was hiking with some friends in the Uintas. They had 3 or 4 kids and had been backpacking for several days. Two of the kids, twins, had celebrated their birthday on that trip. They were maybe 9 or 10 and eagerly showed me their birthday gifts--some simple balsa wood models. (By the way, they were stoked about them and satisfied.) Their family was together in a beautiful place experiencing awesome . I marveled at how happy they all were and delighted that their happiness came without things. It was just them and their people in a beautiful place doing something hard. And that was what I wanted for my future family. Kids that knew how to do hard things. A family that loved being together in beautiful, wild places. Children that lived in gratitude for the simple and who didn't pine for stuff .  This goat packing trip was part of my ultimate dream.  I met the purveyor...