Seeking abundance

A while ago I decided to see how much of what we need I could get for free. Within ethical limitations, of course. No stealing, no cheating others, and gifts don't count. This was not actually because I'm miserly and cheap, it was more an exercise in what is garbage. What are people willing to discard that's still really useful to someone, somewhere? What do we, as a society, get rid of?

If you dig into the cycle of production and discarding of items at all, it becomes pretty clear that we all have a problem. This is not a healthy thing, as individuals or as a society. It has become a sickness, one that is not making anyone happy. In an age of superabundance, when you'd think we'd all be happy because we have not only our needs but most of our wants met, people are severely depressed in increasingly large numbers. There are many causes of depression that I won't get into here, but one of them is definitely the fact that we are too tied to our stuff and the work and the money it takes to get all of that stuff.

So instead of buying new, or even used, I've been trying to see what's out there that people would otherwise discard. I joined my local Buy Nothing Group and another local sharing group as the first steps. People are posting things every single day, either searching for or getting rid of.

What struck me the most was just how much junk people have. Useful items--small appliances, kitchen tools, soaps and bath products, furniture, pet care items, clothes, even food--get posted frequently. But overshadowing those items are things like costume jewelry, novelties given as gifts, wine glass charms, etc. Things that, if we're honest, none of us actually needs. Things we don't really think about or want in our lives. There's a reason they go up on Buy Nothing after a while. And how many more people have these items that just sit unused in a closet somewhere? How many go to charity shops, or straight to the dump?

How many resources have been wasted, how much money has been wasted, on stuff that was made solely to be garbage?

So while I've been getting some items that I need, I've been very particular about what I'm willing to get. Most of what I've received has been from a specific ask that I made--such as winter boots for the Munchkin. Only a few times have I said I was interested in something that was posted by others. Most notably, bricks from a chimney that was taken down and some old paving blocks. I'll use them in the garden next summer when we re-do it, the bricks to make an herb spiral and the paving blocks to re-do two small beds that are currently made out of rotting lumber.

Free planter boxes that
the previous owners of
our house left for us.

But if you think that the sharing groups are the only source of free stuff, you would be very wrong. People put stuff out curbside with "free" signs frequently. There's the Craigslist "free" section. People are constantly getting rid of perfectly serviceable and useful items if you ask around.

Over the summer, my office moved to a new location. With the new location, the people in charge went a little crazy. Nearly everything was new for the new office. New furniture! New silverware! And as it turned out, new appliances.

When we moved into our house we knew that we'd need to get a new fridge. The one the previous owners left was an early 90s model and quite the energy hog. Plus, the design was terrible. It's a side-by-side that was very narrow so food was always getting shoved to the back, forgotten and moldy. We hated it.

When the office manager mentioned that the office was getting a new fridge for the new location, I asked what was happening to the old fridge. "Old" meaning that it was 3 years old, a fancy stainless steel one with the fridge on top and freezer on the bottom. The office manager offered it to me right then, as long as I could pick it up myself, and I happily accepted.

We also took the microwave and the toaster oven. And I'm still kicking myself for not taking one or two of the bookshelves. It was a crazy free-for-all, with people claiming a bunch of stuff that wasn't being moved to the new office. So much of it, though, still went to the landfill. The night we went to get the appliances I saw a homeless man digging through the dumpster. He pulled out a few of the things that I had been the one to throw away earlier that day because I had no idea what else to do with them. That, I do not hesitate to tell you, made me feel very ashamed.

As for the old fridge, I sort of thought that we could turn it into an ice box on the porch for winter but HusbandX nixed that idea. I tried giving it away through various means but no one would take it, not even for free. So I finally paid the city to haul it away after living with two fridges in our kitchen (one unplugged) for about a month.

Not just abundance, overabundance

The final source for free stuff in our lives is one that I'm hesitant to bring up. My brothers and I have been cleaning out our parents' house for a while now. My mom moved at the end of summer into a care facility, which has been a wonderful thing. She's so close now, and less stressed out. She lives with other people like herself--the facility is only for memory care--so no one thinks that she's strange. She's found a community and, in general, is quite happy.

But. This has left us, her kids, with the task of cleaning out her house. I know, absolutely know, that my parents would never have willingly left this task to us. Especially not in this way. But we don't get to choose how we die, so here we all are.

The reason I hesitated to bring this one up is because I don't think of my parents' house as a source of free stuff. Cleaning it out has been a mixed bag of an exhausting, burdensome chore, a source of stress and anxiety, a look into family history, and a source of hilarity. We've found the most bizarre collection of items, some of which surely weren't meant to be saved and others of which we'll never know why they were saved. A caftan-like garment made out of an old sheet? (The only thing I could think of was that it was, at some point, used as a shepherd's robe in some nativity play.) The world's creepiest old porcelain doll? What great-grandparent did that originally belong to? And why was my dad's briefcase from the 80s inexplicably stuffed with nothing but pennies and shoved in the attic?

I wasn't kidding about the briefcase of pennies.

I found an old journal of mine that made me laugh until I cried, just from reading the first page. It just complains, in a whiny way, that my older brothers were being so mean to me. When I read some of it to one of said brothers he asked, "1996? ...Yeah, that sounds about right."

We've taken what useful items we could. We likely won't have to buy dish towels for many, many years. Some kitchen implements my parents had were far nicer than ours and will last much longer. We have bath towels and furniture and sheets.

But most of what we've gotten to use has been sentimental. The Munchkin and Little Miss Sunshine get their great-great grandfather's childhood bedroom furniture. The kids' clothing is useful, but it's not utility that I'm thinking of when I see one of my kids in a sweater my mom knitted for one of us. My dad's old woolen bathrobe is functional, yes, but wearing it makes me think of all the times I saw him wearing it as I was growing up, all the old Christmas morning pictures in which he's wearing it. It won't bring my dad back, but it can keep him close, keep his memory alive and present in my mind.

There's plenty of stuff that we're taking in, however, that we have no idea what to do with. A couple of dresses from, I think, the 20s? They're so fragile that they can't be worn, but they obviously had meaning for whoever saved them. And they are beautiful, but...?? Many items we did not take, even though they might well be valuable or have family history attached to them. What would we do with my grandmother's teacup collection? Or the heirloom silver?

This has been yet another thing that throws in my face how much junk most of us have. Cleaning out the house my parents lived in for 25 years has been a monumental task purely because so much of what they kept was useful at one time, but is no longer. My mom's college textbooks? Those got recycled. No one wants 40-year-old biology books, and for good reason. They're in the Library of Congress and that's good enough.

A bouncy ball that had been chewed on by one of our
old dogs. I'm assuming this was saved by accident?

Businesses are very fond of giving away items to employees that have the company name stamped on them. But what the heck is a stainless steel bowl good for that has a company name stamped on it, even if it is a Paul Revere replica? ...We're now using that as a dog food bowl. Sorry, Mom and Dad!

Since HusbandX and I are at the point in our lives that we're getting stuff like this from our own companies, it's making me think much harder about it all. My kids will not care about a plaque I might get for five years of service. I wish I could change corporate culture at least to the point that more meaningful gifts are given out, or less permanent ones. Flowers and charitable donations, as my company does for births and deaths in employee families, seems like a much better way to honor someone than a plaque or bowl with the company's name all over it.

One of my new goals in life is to pass down next to nothing to my children that isn't useful or sentimental for them. The easiest way to do this, of course, is to ensure that we are good stewards of what is in our house. This is a process, not a one-time thing like spring cleaning. We try to limit what comes into our house--which is much harder said than done when children are involved. Everyone wants to get them stuff. New toys! New stuffed animals! Fancy dress clothes! I was scraping my mind earlier trying to remember if we'd ever bought either of our kids a toy in their entire lives. I finally remembered that we bought some blocks for the Munchkin's 4th birthday. But that's it. In five years of having children we've only ever bought one toy. So why do we have four bins of toys? Because it's really hard, if not impossible, to say no when someone is being generous and wants to give your kid a gift. How ungrateful! But at the same time, we have toys in our house that rarely, if ever, get played with. I'm still trying to figure out how to work through this problem without major tantrums and without offending anyone.

The grownup stuff and the baby stuff is easier. I've been not only getting things through Buy Nothing, I've also been giving them away. Almost as soon as something is identified as being of no further use to us, it's been posted for others to take. In some cases, things have been set aside for friends. I've had a few friends trying for babies so I've kept the clothes from Little Miss Sunshine in case anyone has a girl. If not, those will also go the Buy Nothing route or to a homeless shelter for families.

We're still under a mountain of Stuff. We're not minimalists, and we even still have boxes to go through from our move. Some items are just difficult to know what to do with. But we're working through it, and these projects have made me by turns thankful for our abundance and disgusted by the overabundance. We could do without so many of our things, even many of the useful ones could be gotten by without, that it makes me cringe when I think of all the people out there who are scraping by without much of anything at all. Can we be ethical people when we allow there to be such disparity in terms of wealth and material abundance? I didn't expect all of these questions to be raised within myself when I started on this journey, and I don't have the answers. What I do know, now, is how much less I need than what we're taught we should have.

Bad news: there's a recession coming

Okay, this is not really a prediction. For one thing, I'm not even going to try to guess at when or why or how it will come about. But we live in an economy that, fairly regularly, doesn't work as intended. As economists like to put it, the economy goes through "corrections". Sometimes this involves only certain sectors and ancillary industries, but sometimes (as in 2008) it involves the entire economy. Or the world. Right now we are in one of the longest periods of "growth" ever, and this means that at some point the good times will end. That's the way our economy works. I've known this since I took economics in high school, and it baffles me that this always seems to come as a surprise to so many people when recessions happen. I guess a decade is long enough to make some people think that it will never happen again.

This is also not my prediction. There's this article, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, all with different experts talking about various reasons why we should be worried about the economy. Some point to credit card debt (which is as high as it was at the start of the 2008 recession) or student loan debt (which is now counted in trillions, and has never been higher), others to national debt, or all of that debt put together, which is enough that it should be worrisome even without the economic implications. Others point to stock market indicators like the "Buffett valuation indicator", and charts for various signs to look for. The thing is, they're not wrong. At some point, one of these things will go belly-up and then the rest of it will be in big trouble. Which means that we will all be in trouble.

Last, there are rumblings that the "recovery" was not actually a recovery. Basically all of the gains went to the already wealthy, and those of us who weren't born to crazy wealth are a bit worse off. I can't say I disagree with that assessment, considering that in these happy magical boom times, somehow around half of the people in the richest, greatest, and best nation on earth can't afford basic needs. Homelessness is up. People can't afford food, or medical care. It's like GDP doesn't actually measure how well individuals are doing, or that jobs which don't even pay minimum wage and don't give any benefits aren't doing anyone any favors. Crazy. Or, it's like having corporations do stock buybacks to enrich their already wealthy shareholders while suppressing wages is creating huge income inequality. Who knew?

So, with all of that lovely news, what can and should we do about this? The first thing, clearly, is for each of us to take stock of our actual financial picture. I like to do this about every six months or so for my household. I go through and figure out exactly how much money we have saved up and how much we owe in debts. It hurts a little, right? Yeah. But hopefully that's a good thing. After all, we can't figure out where to focus our efforts without the little bits that pinch. Maybe it's a credit card you haven't paid off, or that mountain of student loan debt, or the mighty mortgage payments every month. Whatever hurts, there's a reason for it.

And what hurts, that's what I focus my attention on. If it hurts now, when things are relatively good, then it's going to be a lodestone when things crash. Do what you have to to ensure that it can't bite you even worse later on.

A little story: 

I was lucky enough that my parents paid my college tuition. I did a lot to help them out. I paid my living expenses through my own jobs, I went to community college first, and I went to a University where I got in-state tuition. But still, my tuition was paid for. I was lucky enough to pay that forward a little. I graduated before HusbandX did and got a job with the University. It didn't pay much but it was a labor of love. One day, I realized that my then-boyfriend and I didn't actually have to be married to get partner benefits. One was healthcare, but the other was free tuition. Score! We jumped through a few hoops, like opening a bank account together, and he finished his degree while only having to pay fees for the last of it.

After HusbandX graduated, he got a job. That disappeared after four months because he graduated right into the recession. The same thing, pretty much, happened with his next two jobs. Luckily, we had continued to live as if we were still college students, mostly off of my salary (less than $30,000/year, sometimes less than $25,000/year net) and saved in our own "boom" times. Meanwhile, the student loans went into deferral and racked up interest. We got married, and his debt became my debt. Thanks, love! At some point, flush in the pocket due to double employment, we decided that we should start paying off those loans. Instead of going for the minimum, however, we decided to set the bar at $600/month. This was what we thought, fancy-free childless people that we were, was a reasonable amount to pay back monthly against $35,000. Not as much as we would like, but a reasonable amount.

Somewhere in there we had a kid. HusbandX went back to school and his income dropped into the low hundreds of dollars per month. We moved, and were mostly jobless for two years. We lived with my parents. And still, we paid $600 every month like clockwork. It was not easy. We could have let the loans go into deferral again and gather more interest. It would have wiped out all of the gains we'd made by paying them off so aggressively, but conventional wisdom said that it would be fine, we could pay it back later! Obviously, we didn't go that route, and just kept paying. We dipped into our savings to make the payments, but that was why we had the savings. We prioritized paying back our debt above most other things.

Almost exactly a year ago, we realized that the debt had gotten low enough that, even without totally wiping out our emergency fund, we could pay off the rest in one swoop. $10,000 or so gone, just like that. If we hadn't done that then we would still be paying $600 a month toward that debt. Every single month. By paying it off early we saved ourselves about 18 months of payments and a little over $500 in interest. Seems pretty worthwhile, right? That's not even what I appreciate the most, however. Not having that debt hanging over our heads, and the large payment every month, has been so freeing. And now we have no student loans while most of our peers are still paying the monthly minimum.

What to do with all of this information?

We were able to do this not because we've made tons of money through our lives--on the contrary, most of our marriage has involved very low salaries punctuated by a few months of relatively high earnings. We were able to pay off this debt because we worked hard at it. That is so underrated in our society. We didn't spend our money on unnecessary and frivolous crap. I hate to say it, but most people do. If you ever wonder where your money has gone, you should probably look around you. If you can find even a few unnecessary things in just a quick scan, you have your answer. We prioritized paying off our debt while most people prioritize Things.

When you have a debt to pay, the minimum monthly payment is just that. The minimum. It is not designed to help you, or for your convenience, or to benefit you in any way. It's designed to keep you paying at that debt as long as it can be dragged out, so that the lender can gather as much interest from you as possible. It's usury, plain and simple. Put your debts through a debt calculator to figure out how much money you'll be paying in the long run. With the $35,000 we owed in student loans, the average interest rate was 6% (I think--it might have been more). If we'd paid half of what we did, only $300 each month, that would have taken us almost fifteen years to pay off. It would also have cost us almost $53,000 in the end thanks to interest. As it is, since debt is always front-loaded with interest (that is, you pay more interest at the beginning of your repayments) we still paid almost $40,000. Ouch. Ouch. I can think of so many better things we could have done with that extra 5k than spend it on interest.

I don't say all of this to brag about how awesome we are. I want to help other people feel as secure as we do, because it's important. Debt is so rampant in our culture, however, that people have gotten used to it. They feel comfortable with it, even if they're not secure. However, I have a radical notion and it is this: you cannot feel good if you do not feel secure. If you constantly feel as if you're one or two paychecks away from losing everything, that is a source of stress, not happiness.

One major part of our security has been that we plan for the worst. I have friends who've described this quite aptly as the "inner bag lady". When you get anxious and think about all the worst possibilities that could happen, that's your inner bag lady talking. For me, my inner bag lady whispers about a lot of things. A lot. The key is that I listen to her just enough that I have a plan in place for all of these things. Seriously. I won't go into all the ridiculous scenarios that my IBL (inner bag lady) has come up with for me to fret about in the dark of the night, but suffice to say that I know I have plans in place and that allows me to tune out the IBL's worst ravings. I let her prod me into making better financial choices, but other than that I am able to ignore her.

People who do not prepare themselves for bad things, however, end up having to listen to their IBL more often. What if I miss a payment and the car is taken away?  Or, I can't lose my job because I NEED it. When little things crop up, and they always do, those who are not prepared for such emergencies end up with more stress and more worries than those of us who plan and prepare for such things. Just this year, we finished paying all of the bills for the birth of Little Miss Sunshine, a planned expense, and then the bathtub in our basement cracked. Decidedly not planned. But it was okay, we had the savings to cover that too. And again to cover the cost when our car got a flat tire a few weeks after the bathtub was fixed. Again, this is why we had the savings. All the scrimping and saving and watching our pennies is worthwhile to not have any worries when emergencies crop up.

Each person should have 3-6 months, or more, of living expenses saved up as an emergency fund. It should be money that you can access within 30 days or less. Having equity in a house does not count, nor does a retirement fund. We have our e-fund in three different places, as an added layer of security. The first and most obvious is in our savings account. But we also have a small amount in an index fund, so that it will gain interest faster than our savings account. (It's not much--I think I could have bought a drip coffee every other week with the gains this year, had I been so inclined.) The third place is in a different, international investment. This diversity gives us a variety of safeguards. If the stock market tanks and we lose everything in the index fund, oh well. If our credit union, for some reason, goes belly-up it's still not the end of the world. If the third fund turns out to be run by a Bernie Madoff wannabe* then we won't lose all of our emergency money.

Every single person should have this, if at all possible. I know, there are plenty of people for whom that is a distant reality. So much more reason why the rest of us should have our shit together. Assistance should be for those who really need it, not those who had opportunities and pissed them away on crap.

As a couple, and that part is important in a relationship, HusbandX and I have always set our finances up as if we expect life to come crashing down around us. This is partly because it usually does at some point. Since we're Millennials (maybe?) this experience is not unusual. What is unusual is that we always have the money to cover the crash. Most people don't. Don't be most people.

But wait! I said above that most of us aren't experiencing an economic high right now, that wages are depressed and it's harder for the average person to get by. Yet I'm still saying that people should save out of their meager pay?! Yes, that is correct. I know it's hard. But again, if things are hard for the average person right now, it won't get any easier during the next recession. Layoffs and foreclosures and seized assets are going to take an even bigger toll the next time around because the buffer just isn't there anymore for so many people.

Weeding out the chaff

There's one more hidden advantage to making the necessary cuts to save money and pay off debt "aggressively". Because we prioritize these two things we have also learned exactly what is important to us and what is not. We have identified our needs and all else is unnecessary fluff. Which is not to say that we never buy fluff, just that we keep it to a minimum.

As an example, I recently purchased a new bike saddle. This, to my mind, straddled the line between "need" and "want." I had a saddle, one that was not worn out or damaged. However when I started riding again after Little Miss Sunshine was born, it hurt. I was saddle sore for weeks. It mostly faded, but there were still new pressure points. After several months of dealing with an uncomfortable saddle (which can cause lasting damage, BTW) I sprung for a new one. It was pricey, over $100. I even paused for a whole month before finally purchasing it, because I wanted to be absolutely certain that it was really what I needed. Now...oh boy, riding my bike and not being sore is wonderful. Not only that but this purchase also advances one of our family's goals (health), and it makes my rides more fun. Fun bike rides = more bike rides, less driving or transit, and also a happier, healthier Mom. Wins all around! (My favorite.)

Conversely, almost all of the furniture in our house was free. Buying a house is a usual time for people to go more than a bit spendy, buying new furniture, pots and pans, towels--new everything--to fill the house. We lived with a mostly bare house for most of last summer, slowly accumulating our motley collection of free furniture. The only item we purchased was our mattress. Even the bed frame was given to us by my brother-in-law. I can live with hand-me-down furniture, including the section of the couch where the seams are pulling apart. I even like that a lot of the furniture is not new--we have the dining table and chairs that my grandmother gave to my parents when they got married. (She reportedly got the table at a garage sale for something like $20. Go grandma!) We have the bedroom set that belonged to my grandfather and his brother, for my girls. The couch that's looking kinda worn is also super comfortable. Many a nap has been taken on there, and a few night's sleeps.**

We are slowly spending money on our house as we identify what matters to us, but furniture is waaaaaay down the list. We'd rather spend that money making ourselves actually, rather than superficially, more comfortable. Insulation for the house is our big project this fall.*** It will serve us well for many years to come, through good times and bad. When the next recession comes I won't be cursing the insulation, which I would if I'd instead bought a new couch--especially on credit. Prioritizing things as we do means that we will also be much more comfortable over the long term. We are more comfortable now than many of our peers who are deep in student loan debt, but we will also be more comfortable as debt and lifestyle creep catch up to our peers who continue to pay the minimums, often racking up more debt in the meantime. We've planned for the very worst and since that is unlikely to happen, anything else that comes our way is something that we can handle. We've taken care of those worries in advance, rather than letting them pile up later on.



*My brother-in-law is working for this company, and I'm confident that he would know if it was a scam. It's a small operation. As a general rule, however, I don't recommend investing any money outside of large corporations with a proven track record.
**My only excuse is that David Attenborough is pretty damn soothing when you're tired. So easy to fall asleep listening to him talk elephants and snails.
***After the rebates from our utility, the price will come in just over $1000. Not too shabby.

The Midsummer Garden and What to Plant

Amazingly enough, it's the middle of summer here. It's gone by so fast. When I think that I haven't gotten much done, however, I glance at the garden. Tossing a few seeds about and planting a few starts has somehow turned into actual plants that are huge. The teeny tiny tomatoes that I planted are enormous and bushy and vying for space because, whoops, I planted them too close. (And now I don't want to tear any out because I forgot to label them. I think that one of the varieties was a slower grower, and I don't want to just pull those plants!)

What's going on in and around our house

The broccoli is starting to form crowns, and I've been harvesting both peas and carrots like crazy. I've even had lots of meals now where all of the vegetables came from my garden, even a few non-salads. (Hello, stir-fry!) That is a huge accomplishment for me. As the summer ages, I expect to have that become more the norm than an outlier, or at least to have an even more significant amount of our vegetable diet be homegrown. The carrots I've been using have almost exclusively been the ones I needed to thin, so they've been smaller than usual. More like baby carrots. As the others get bigger due to the extra growing room I'll be able to use fewer but have them make up a larger percentage of our meals. The tomatoes that are big and green should start ripening soon, and my squashes are still just babies that won't be ready until sometime in the fall. I have another sowing of greens that's starting to pop up (although not as many as I planted, stupid summer heat and stupid birds eating the seeds!) and my peppers are finally starting to put out some fruit.

This is the kind of bouquet I can get behind.

For some crops, like garden peas, I've been using what I think of as the 50/50 rule: half the time when I harvest, the garden peas get eaten fresh. The other half get shelled, blanched, and tossed in the freezer. Small batch blanching is easy with peas. I boil water in the kettle (usually making tea as well) pour it over the peas in a small bowl, let sit for about 30 seconds, then drain the water and put the peas in the bag in the freezer. If I'm really on my game I pour the blanching water into another container so that, when it cools, I can use it to water some of my plants. Don't waste that water! (We also pour "stale" water, or mystery water if we can't tell whose glass it was, onto the plants. Don't waste water!)

I use this same rule for the fruit I bring home from the farmer's market. Half of it is either frozen or preserved, the rest is eaten fresh. Yum. Don't worry, even with this rule we've been making ourselves sick with what we've eaten fresh. #worthit

Freezing our own fruit for winter use has been an exceedingly worthwhile use of my time. If you've ever bought frozen fruit from the store, you know how pricey it gets. $9 for a pound of cherries makes spending the time to pit them, lay them out on a pan, and stuff them in the freezer a bargain when I can buy organic local cherries for $4/lb. I can do well over thee pounds in an hour. Even better, cherries can be water bath canned in nothing but water and I've found them to be incredibly versatile that way. I used most of my jars over the winter in either baked oatmeal or as the fruit in a yogurt and granola parfait. Of course, you can also turn them into dessert, like a cobbler or topping for ice cream, but the healthier options are like a nice treat anyway, at least to me. Again, don't waste the water. It's got all kinds of nutrients in it from the cherries! Use that in baking, or in those parfaits. Thicken it into a sauce and pour it over ice cream, or into yogurt. Use it in a cocktail. Just don't dump it out.

If you're going to work with cherries, do yourself a favor and get a pitter. Or as my brother described it, a cherry hole-punch. They make it a breeze to do pounds and pounds of cherries. I will never, ever go back to cutting each cherry by hand and picking out the pit.

Some of our strawberries got preserved in jars as well. Since we still have several jams in our basement, and I didn't want to do another strawberry jam, I instead made strawberry syrup and, with the leftover pulp, strawberry butter. Yum. These were, unfortunately, farmer's market strawberries. All of ours were either eaten directly after picking or by the critters. We've got future plans for keeping them safe and expanding the number of plants, but our current set-up is rather poor for that.

Catastrophic preserving fail! The contents
were hot when I put it in the canner
--maybe the jar was too old?

In the midst of all of this harvesting, preserving, and the ongoing weeding, I had to plan and purchase my fall and winter garden. I've been enjoying eating out of the garden so much that I wanted to carry it forward all year, and not just from the larder. I had to figure out what will grow around here, and most important, what we will actually eat. It's totally pointless to plant something that grows well but that we hate. That being said, I ordered seeds for Scarlet Kale over my spouse's objections. ("If you grow that, eventually it's going to end up in my dinner!") I'm hoping that homegrown kale is different from store-bought kale, but I also have a few recipes that call for kale and I'd like to make them. (Even if my husband won't eat them, I will.) Plus, a winter-hardy and incredibly nutritious "green" (in this case, more of a purple) vegetable is hard to turn my nose up at.

I also ordered two kinds of chard (rainbow and Perpetual Spinach), a turnip variety, Early Wonder beets, and two kinds of carrots. I'm hoping to get more broccoli going before fall, since my family will eat three crowns in one meal (the Munchkin loves it as much as we do) and I'm still debating whether or not to get garlic. I don't want to get too ambitious, however, because we have plans to re-do the backyard, especially the garden, sometime next year. We've mostly hashed out a plan (my proposal for backyard chickens was nixed, darn it!) but it's going to take a lot of work. Since I don't want to stop growing things--horrors--I'm going to mostly be trying to do the work around both the weather and what's growing in the garden at any given time. Wish me luck.

The potato experiment

I've experimented in the past with ways to grow potatoes up rather than out, since space has always been an issue in my gardens. Sometimes this has been decently successful, other times not so much. Sometimes the weather interferes (rainy summers) and getting even a couple of potatoes is an accomplishment.

The idea behind growing up is that potatoes grow between the seed and what you see on the surface. If you can maximize the root that grows between those two things then you should have a decent number of potatoes. This year I put together a pallet bed specifically for potatoes. It's deep. It's wide. Roughly 4x4, plus three feet deep, it's a rather large growing space. It's also cited in a lovely spot, so it gets lots of sun all day.

What's experimental about this little bed is how I planted the potatoes. They've got a thick layer of compost at the bottom, then I placed the potatoes, and on top of that I alternately layered compost and grass clippings. The grass serves multiple purposes. One, it lightens up the load. I put over a foot of compost and grass clippings over those potatoes. That's a lot of ground for a potato to try to grow through, and it's possible to smother the seed potatoes. If it wastes all of its energy just trying to get its sprout to the surface, it's not exactly going to make a healthy plant. Or, in some cases, any plant.

Second, it adds organic material to break down and continually feed the potatoes. Potatoes are rather heavy feeders. I don't believe in breaking down a plant's nutrient needs into simply N-P-K as many fertilizers do--I think that's as silly as saying humans only need fat, protein, and carbs. Clearly we need more, and they can be crucially important, just as many trace minerals and nutrients can be important to plants. The decaying grass, which I'm certain is pretty much unrecognizable by now, will release its nutrients over the summer as it continues breaking down with the help of the compost. Or at least, that's the hope.

My janky, lopsided pallet bed. I don't care that it's not
pretty. It's lined with gardener's fabric so I can easily
dig through the soil when it's time to get the spuds.

Third, grass clippings can hold a lot of water. By layering them in there I've basically made a continual watering system, so that the potatoes won't ever run dry. This also means that I don't need to water them as often, or for as long. We soaked the entire bed really well a few times and since then I've not done much more than point the hose in there for a minute or two. The plants are thriving, putting out flowers and truly healthy looking.

Will it work and give me tons of gorgeous potatoes? I have no idea. Right now the plants are more than chest high to me, with roughly two feet of above-ground growth. Let's hope that what's under the ground is doing just as well.

Starting the winter garden

As crazy as it seems, now is the time to start planting for fall, and in just another month or so it will be time to start planting for winter. O_O  I know.

I tried a new method of planting carrots that I'd read about, and that is planting gel. Supposedly it wraps the seed in a protective coating and helps it maintain moisture for about as long as it needs to get going. You can buy them, or you can make it for just a few cents with some water and cornstarch. Guess which one I did?

Well, I'm not sure if I did it wrong or if it works better in spring, when it's wet anyway, but it ended up making my neat planting rows into dried husks with seeds embedded in them. My next planting of carrots, without the gel, got eaten by the birds. :( I'm still trying to figure out how to keep it all damp enough to sprout seeds and also keep it safe from the birds.

There was an attempt.

One thing that I will recommend for seed starting is chitting your seeds. Most gardeners know that you can do this with potatoes but many other seeds can be chitted before planting. Once the root starts growing it will keep growing unless the conditions it's been planted in are just seriously wrong. Like, a chitted squash seed will not continue growing if it's then planted in mostly frozen or boggy soil. But if you chit a seed and plant it out at the right time, you can sometimes get an extra week or two of growing time. This works easily with big seeds, like peas and squash, but can also work for smaller seeds. I've seen people chit them on top of a bowl of growing gel, or in a mason jar, or in a paper towel. Just check the seeds every day and plant very carefully (so as not to disturb or break off that root) at the first sign of growth.

Is it all worthwhile?

I estimate that I've spent about $400 on the garden this year. That is not a small amount of money. However, much of it has been spent on things that will pay off for many years. We bought four more blueberry plants (for a total of six), which won't pay themselves off for several years. In this first year, I actually pulled most of the flowers off so that the plants would put more effort into root growth rather than fruit, so that they will be healthier in years to come. In addition to buying these, my spouse also built two new raised beds in the front for them. That wasn't cheap either. Since blueberries like truly acidic soil, we wanted them separated so that it's easier to deal with them on their own. Since they're pretty, however, we were able to put them out front by the fence. I've even overheard a few people passing by commenting on how lovely the beds are.

I also purchased a rhubarb plant, we got two apple trees, and a lemon tree. (The lemon is in a giant pot, and will live indoors for about half the year.) None of them can be harvested this year, and probably nothing much, if at all, next year either. The trees are all tiny. Just as with the blueberries, they were purchased based on future rather than immediate payoff.

Combined with the compost, a few other annual plants I purchased, my seeds, and the stuff to make low tunnels, it was a pricey garden year. Next year might not be any different, since we're going to be re-doing the garden area entirely.

All that said, I still think it's been worthwhile already. When my first crop of lettuce was going I ate salads anywhere from 2-14 times each week and never had to buy lettuce. We've been eating a ton of stir-frys but have mostly just bought a bit of chicken and rice to go with the vegetables. I harvested the potatoes I planted early into big buckets, and will get several large breakfasts from them combined with some of my onions and topped with an egg. All of this and I still haven't gotten to harvest any tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, or my main crop of potatoes yet. Most of my onions are still in the ground. We've easily already diverted $200 of grocery spending and will almost certainly be exceeding the other half of what we've spent on the garden. And that is, again, without any of the perennials we planted being harvestable.

It's not exactly food independence but that's not
a bad start. Potatoes, snow peas, garden peas,
onion, carrots, and chamomile.

Aside from the money, having a garden is a form of security. When things go bad, food gets scarce. Think of what it would be like if we actually had The Big One (earthquake) here. Would you be able to feed yourself for two weeks without the grocery store?

And even aside from that, there are rather routine "price shocks" in food these days. The cost of food has been rising faster than average inflation, and almost certainly will keep rising. The book Bet the Farm has a really good overview of what's going on with food and the financial markets. It's both depressing and scary to read. Spoiler: people all over the world will continue to go hungry because it's not profitable to feed them. I'm not okay with that. I'm not okay with being part of a system that exists to exploit some people and starve others. To the extent that I can opt out, I will opt out.

This year, crops all over the world are failing due to drought, flood, or heat. The Irish potato crop is failing, Farmers in the UK and Australia are freaking out about the droughts, so is Germany. They should maybe be thankful they're not on fire. Where it's not in extreme heat and drought, there are floods. You guys, these are the climate change impacts scientists have been warning us about. This is almost certainly the start of a new trend, not an aberration. If we all want to eat, and eat well, then many more of us need to grow food, in less stupid ways.

Which brings me to my next point. Even a brief overview of our current farming system should show how dumb it is. As one example, we killed off the grazers that used to roam the Midwest grasslands. Then we ripped up the grass to plant corn and soybeans that we turn around and mostly feed to different grazers...which we keep in giant factories. Because they're in factories and not on grassland, their waste collects in giant cesspools and becomes hazardous waste instead of fertilizer. Since the natural fertilizer is going to waste farmers instead have to import fossil fuel based fertilizers, which are very expensive and help put many farmers into debt. *facepalm* And this gets subsidized by the government, while many people tout how "efficient" it is. Organic and small scale farming is only land efficient if you don't count the land cost of oilfields to help run conventional agriculture, FYI. So, maybe if your only metric is how many calories are produced, sure, doing things this way is more efficient, but by every other measure it's pure stupid. It's wasteful and polluting. Again, I really don't want to be part of such destructive stupidity. And by growing at least some of our own food, we're decreasing the amount of land needed to be razed and used for agriculture.

My household wastes less food when we grow it ourselves, because, darn it, if I grew it then I'm going to eat it. Even parts that are often considered "waste" in the grocery store can have their uses in the kitchen. "Inedible" garden pea pods aren't actually inedible, they just have a tough membrane that can be peeled off so the rest of the pod can be consumed. Celery leaves can be used to flavor soup. As a last resort, I use the "waste" parts to either make vegetable broth or to add flavor to chicken broth.

And if all that doesn't get you excited to grow something, there's also the fact that we eat healthier because of the garden. Seriously, did you not read where I said I was eating tons of salads all spring? I munch on vegetables raw while I'm out in the garden, and so does the rest of the family. I add the onion tops as green onions to basically everything I can so that they don't go to waste, but I'm also conscious of the fact that it gives me a bit more vegetable matter in my diet. We all benefit from the healthy freshness of the veggies, and we eat more than we would if it all came from the grocery store. It's fantastic.

Homegrown stir-fry

I know a number of people who've tried gardening and failed at it for one reason or another. Maybe it was a bad season, maybe the soil was poor and they didn't know it. Try again! And if you really, really can't stand it, find the one or two things you can grow and do those. I have an acquaintance who mostly just grows strawberries, but that counts. Good on her.

It might seem ridiculous to think that small scale home gardening can have an impact on any or all of the issues I highlighted above, but around a third of all vegetables consumed in the U.S. during WWII was produced in victory gardens. Gardening can also foster greater community ties. By getting outside more often, people naturally interact more with their neighbors. Just ask ours, who is pleased as can be that I want to harvest the apples from her tree. (She hates them, apparently. They make great applesauce and apple butter.) And among many people in cities, community gardening has provided not just food but also a social outlet. Gardening is awesome. You should try it.

So what should you grow?

I've spent a lot of time thinking about the crops that are the most worthwhile to grow for a variety of conditions. There are so many lists out there but this one's mine. Obviously it comes with the caveat that if you or your family won't eat something you shouldn't grow it because that's a waste. But these are the ones that seem most worthwhile because of either price, taste, or because they're just so darn easy.

1. Leafy greens. I'm including collards, kale, lettuce, spinach, and chard all into one. I think just about everyone can grow at least one of these. Many of them don't need, or even like, a lot of sun. They can be grown in any climate, they don't take up a lot of space, and they can be grown in pots in a sunny window if that's all you have. Perhaps best of all, you don't have to harvest the entire plant. Take a few leaves here and there until it starts to bolt, then pull the plant and replace it. I almost never have all of my plants bolt at once so you can try to get the next crop in the ground while eking out a bit more from the plants that are still going.

2. Herbs. Most of them are easy to grow and they don't take up much space. The fact that they're really expensive at the store makes them totally worthwhile monetarily. If you use any herbs fresh, do yourself a favor and figure out how to grow them. Bonus points: if you buy the fresh ones they almost always come in those stupid plastic containers. Now you don't have to throw those away. (Let's not kid ourselves--recycling plastic is frequently throwing it away.)

3. Carrots. They're so underrated, but homegrown carrots just have so much flavor. There are few vegetables I enjoy more than a freshly picked carrot. Any variety will do, though they do taste slightly different. Some are spicier, some are sweeter varieties. Doesn't matter, I'll nom all of them. The only reason they're not first on my list is that they do require a bit of land to grow. Apartment dwellers need not fear, however, because I've had luck growing fat, short Parisienne carrots in a wide, shallow box. They also grow quickly, so in most climates you can get several sowings from spring-early winter.

4. Peas. They grow vertically so they don't take up too much space. A person willing and determined, with a sunny balcony, could grow peas from a pot up a trellis. It would be beautiful and decorative as well as functional. If you're going to grow them in such a small space, though, stick to sugar snaps or snow peas. Garden peas take a decent amount of space to be worthwhile. I still grow them, but the most I've gotten in any single year was about a gallon and a half of shelled peas.

Peas, butternut squash, and bush beans. They're way
bigger now.

5. Potatoes. They're cheap at the grocery store, true, but they're also an easy way to get more of your calories from your garden. (The other biggies are winter squash, beans, and corn.) Plus, they're really fun to dig up, particularly for kids. I do the digging and have the Munchkin keep an eye out for spuds, then pick them up. They do take a bit of land to grow, though it doesn't have to be really good land. Potatoes will grow even in somewhat crappy soil. They'll be lower in nutrition from lower quality soil, but not enough to make homegrown potatoes detrimental. Particularly considering how poor quality the soil is on most U.S. farmland these days!

6. Zucchini. Good old zucchini. I'm kicking myself for not growing any this year, since this is a powerhouse of a plant that will, if you treat it right, reward you with many, many squashes to eat. When you get sick of eating them for main dishes, then you start getting into the crazier things like zucchini cookies and zucchini pancakes. They're really good, actually! Zucchini bread might be one of the best dishes ever invented. It's basically cake, but it has a green vegetable so it's totally healthy and you can eat it for breakfast. Right? Right. Anyway, zucchini, again, takes a little bit of space to actually grow well so it's not suitable for inside an apartment. Summer squash is an equivalent that's also yummy and easy to grow.

7. Beans! This year I'm growing both green and purple beans. We're going to eat them fresh all season and, if we're lucky, I'll be able to put some in the freezer or in jars for winter. They're like peas in that they don't have to take up a lot of room, they help replenish the soil with certain nutrients, and they can give you a lot of calories and nutrition. I haven't tried growing them myself, but there are several varieties that are good to eat as long beans or as dried beans.

8. Walking onions. Apparently there are more varieties than just the Egyptian ones, but those are the ones I've got. They were actually planted in the garden by the people before us and I thought they were neat so I left them. I didn't actually expect them to survive the winter but they did, and now I have tons of onions. I mean, I planted all those starts in the spring so I had lots anyway, but now I realize I have this crop and it's wonderful. They're, obviously, a perennial so you don't have to worry about planting them ever again. They take care of that themselves, hence the "walking" aspect. I like a vegetable that requires basically zero effort on my part.

Fishbowl view of tomatoes. Planted too close together,
but they're making it work.

9. Tomatoes, of course. I don't actually like fresh tomatoes all that much, so I can't speak to the flavor. I know it's different but it's still...tomatoey. But I love cooked or dried tomatoes and my spouse goes nuts for all tomatoes. I've started appreciating cherry tomatoes and if you just have a small area or the space for one little container tomato plant, do a grape or cherry tomato. Those things are champion producers, and if you have extras they can be dried. If you have more space, there are endless varieties of tomatoes to get. Slicing tomatoes are good for things like sandwiches, some are better for salsa, saucing tomatoes are good for, you probably guessed it, making sauce. Some are better fresh, some need to be cooked to unleash their full potential. Just don't go with the big box store starts. They're basically the same as what you'd get from the grocery store and why are you growing them at home then? Branch out, friend.

10. Celery. I really like celery, but only if it's homegrown. Grocery store celery is just so watery and tasteless. Garden celery has an amazing amount of flavor, enough that it can be overpowering if you use as much in a recipe as you're used to. It's also a much darker green when I grow it at home, so it pops visually when I cook with it. However, celery is a rather persnickety plant and can be tough to grow, particularly from seed. Most of mine died this year but I've got three that are finally starting to come into their own. They take a long time to get going--they were the longest of my seeds to sprout, and even discounting that time it took them the longest to start putting out their first true leaves--but it's so worth it.

11. Bonus, but grow absolutely anything edible that is also perennial. It is the most effortless way, by far, to grow food, as well as the most efficient. I haven't had to do anything for our perennials except plant, water, and harvest. Maybe a tiny bit of weeding here and there in the blueberry beds. Compared to the endless tending to my other crops (starting them in pots, thinning them when they're too close, making sure they grow up the trellis, caging them or tying them up) the perennials have been a breeze. If you seriously lack money and/or time, perennials are the way to go.

Outdoor preschool: a review

A Little Background

I say it constantly but it always bears repeating: our older daughter is a force of nature. She is vibrant, and wild, and athletic, and riotous, and chaotic. All the baby books I read were so completely, totally wrong about what my kid needed that I had to ignore pretty much all of the "expert" advice because, apparently, those experts have never met a kid like mine. We tried dozens of different sleep methods that all promised we could get our child to sleep well. (Ha!) We've tried at least as many routines and methods of discipline. In the end, she does what she wants regardless of consequences. Some days, I feel like I might as well bash my head against the wall as try to direct or control her because she listens to me so little, and cares less for my opinion or thoughts.

It took us a long time, but we finally realized that our kid thrives on chaos. Everyone ever who has studied kids will say that they need order and structure to feel secure. In some ways this may be true for ours (she can count on meals and snacks at roughly the same time each day, bedtime at around the same time, and all of that) but the times when she is the best behaved for us tend to be the times when everything is in disorder. Thirteen people over for Christmas? She's an angel! Giant crowds? Loves them! Noise, light, distractions? Her favorite things!

She has never yet stuck to any consistent schedule. Sometimes we put her in bed at 7:30 and she's asleep within ten minutes. Other times we put her in bed at the same time but we're tearing our hair out with frustration because she's still awake at 11:00. She likes disorder, and if there isn't any built into her life she will create it herself. It. is. exhausting. I was so, so looking forward to the start of preschool through basically all of her early years. However, I was also nervous about it. Was she going to have discipline problems at school? Because, well, how can any school contain such a big personality? If they're trying to create order, how will that stifle my kid who needs chaos? How will she even learn effectively?

Over a year before she was even due to start preschool I started looking into different types of schooling methods and philosophies. I thought that Montessori and Waldorf schools might be a little more promising but didn't fully buy into their methods. Then I came across an article about Germany's outdoor preschools. Holy shit, I thought, the Holy Grail of school types for my kid! I wouldn't have to worry about her being made to sit still in some small classroom with a bunch of other kids, something that would never suit her at this age. Or, probably, any age. I wouldn't have to worry that she'd be confined and stifled. I wouldn't have to worry that she'd be so energetic and wild that she'd get kicked out of school!

Of course, those preschools were in Germany. With a heart full of pessimism I did a search for forest preschools in the Seattle area and found two. One is on an island nearby, which was obviously out, but the other operates in quite a few parks around the city. I applied the very day I discovered it. It was a leap of faith, because we hadn't even bought our house yet and I was applying to the class in the area we were just hoping to be in. When we got accepted, we still hadn't closed on our house. It made me a little anxious to not have it all together but only mildly so. Optimism won the day, and proved correct.

The Review

This school is amazing. Each of the kids is given, out of their tuition, a pair of Grundens and a matching rain jacket. Kids who needed them also received boots. The rest of the appropriate gear for the weather--hats, warm pants and socks, gloves, mittens, etc.--have to come from the families. The preschool teachers regularly sent out emails to either remind us of different layering options or to point us in the direction of good deals to be found on children's cold weather gear.

Because yes, the kids go to school outside in all weather. There were no snow days, despite there being several days during which it snowed. There was no cancellation even on the rainiest of days. And there is also no building. The "classroom" is an area that's marked off by the park management but has almost no covering beyond what the trees provide. It is truly outdoors.

The school day itself was exactly what we needed: ordered chaos. The first half hour, during drop-off, is generally for the kids to explore on their own, within the classroom. This meant anything from reading books (the teachers did put up a very small rain cover to keep the reading area dry) to building with blocks, to climbing trees. Smashing rocks against bigger rocks was also a major activity. Essentially, the kids ran wild to burn off their beginning of the school day energy. The teachers, there were three for our class, would check up on kids who seemed to need it, whether it was because they were sad that their parents had left or were 30 feet up in a tree. "Are you okay up there? Do you need any help? Okay then. I'll just wait down here and you can tell me if you run into trouble."

After the kids had gotten out some of their initial energy the teachers would corral them into different activities. School officially started with "greeting", a song and either a conversation about something the kids were interested in or, later in the year, puppets talking about issues that were relevant to the kids. Emotions and how to handle them were, naturally, a big topic. It is, after all, preschool. We showed up a few times and some of the kids were wrestling on the ground. If they were actually fighting, rather than playing, the teachers would gently pry them apart and separate them to talk about what was going on and better ways to handle big feelings or conflicts. If it was mutual play, the teachers would keep an eye on them but not interfere.

Every day included a hike, and a snack, and big group time (often a form of tag or Simon Says, something physical but that also required the kids to either work cooperatively or to listen), and small group time. Small group time was when they worked on counting, letters and writing, patterns, things of that sort. They were learning just as much as kids do in any preschool about the "important" subjects, while also learning things like: nettles sting but plants growing nearby can help lessen the sting, moles make holes, how fast and far they can run or climb, and where to find salamanders. They learned about the life cycle of plants, they observed birds and squirrels, played in streams and mud. They learned to measure using their arms, since sticks to be played with couldn't be longer than that. (Unless it was going to be a walking stick for the hike.)

In addition to all of this, the kids were given responsibilities. The Munchkin generally thrives when given a task or chore to do (usually--she's only four) and would sometimes brag about her chore for the day. "I was the snack passer!" "I was the sweeper on our hike! I had to call [friend] to keep up with the group, and he did!" I love that the school is based around the idea of giving kids agency and treating them as responsible. It's something we try to do at home and I was happy to see this idea reinforced by the school.

The kids were able to use tools, including saws, and I've mentioned some of the other "dangerous" activities they were allowed to do. Learning to be mindful of how and when to do something--don't throw rocks when your friends are near, for example--was a huge part of the curriculum. There was also always safety equipment available. When the rock smashing became a thing, out came the safety glasses. You could smash rocks but only if you were wearing safety glasses. It's such a small thing but it really helped the kids to be mindful of all the other safety rules. Make them put on the glasses and suddenly they're telling their friends to stand back because it's not safe to be so close.

You might expect that the gender disparity would be large in such a school. After all, in a world where parents tell little girls "be careful" more than they do little boys, and where "boys will be boys" but girls are princesses, it would be safe to assume that more boys would be signed up for outdoor school than girls. So I'm really happy to say that the gender ratio only slightly favored boys. Having other tough, capable girls of her own age around was great for the Munchkin. And I love being able to talk with other moms who understand what it's like to raise a girl like mine. The kiddo isn't the only one who made friends!

However, it was a mixed age group. Kids ranged from 3 to 5 years old. Some have another year of preschool while others are starting kindergarten in the fall. This actually worked out really well, especially since some of the kids were returning from last year. They knew the drill and helped the younger kids adjust to the routine of school. In the beginning of the year they helped carry things that were too big and heavy for the smaller kids, or gave them a boost up onto the log that was just too tall. They also provided a benchmark for the younger kids to work toward, constantly striving to be just a little bit more like the bigger kids.

The only things that I disliked about preschool are mostly things that we would have disliked about any preschool. She picked up on gender stereotypes that we had, until this point, managed pretty well to shield her from. "Pink is a girl color" became a thing in our house, so we had to have conversations about what everyone important in her life has for a favorite color. Spoiler alert: she has an uncle whose favorite color is pink. We discussed the fact that a color cannot be for girls or boys because it's just a color. "Your eyes are blue. Does that mean you have boy eyes?" "No, haha! Silly Mommy!"

Our Munchkin has also never really been violent, but this year she tried out a few things. She hit me several times, her tantrums became wilder and she started kicking us occasionally during them. She also threw a book at me. (We got rid of that book as a consequence--I disliked it anyway.) I know she picked up the ideas to do these things from watching the other kids. There was a day early in the year when she got bitten by another kid. When we showed up the next morning he handed her an "I'm sorry I bit you" card that he'd made and his dad said, "Okay, let's go. We've got another one of those to deliver." (I'm not upset--in fact, that kid has become one of the Munchkin's best school buddies.) It's not surprising that kids in a school like this one would be very energetic and very physical, but I do wish this was something that our girl hadn't picked up on. Thankfully, her attempts at violence have been few and far between.

The one downside to this school that wouldn't come from an ordinary school is the amount and type of laundry. I'm so sick of opening socks that have been balled up as they were removed and being showered with sand. For quite a long time, our washing machine had gravel in it because our kid stuffed her pockets with it and didn't tell me. It took so long to remove it all. Formerly white pants are all a sort of dingy brown-gray, despite attempts at both chemical and sun bleaching. The mud was real, even with the Grundens. To keep warm enough, over the winter we had her wear multiple layers of clothing so some days we'd have: two pairs of socks, two pairs of pants, two shirts, two jackets, a hat, and gloves that were all either soaking wet or filthy. It adds up over five days.

Not only that, but it's hard on gear. The Munchkin lost five pairs of gloves and mittens over the course of the year. She also managed to put gashes in her XtraTufs. !!!! How does a kid even manage that? She put holes in several pairs of pants and managed to lose some of her wool socks. I would say my kid is just forgetful but I saw the Lost & Found box every day, the other kids were just as bad. Again, they're preschoolers.

But how much does it cost?

Since the preschool doesn't have a building to maintain, it actually costs far less than a traditional preschool. For five days a week, mornings only, we've been paying the full price of just shy of $700. (There are scholarships on a sliding scale for lower-income families, in an effort to make this accessible not just for rich kids. I also love that about the school!) Considering that other preschools I looked at were asking $1500-$2000, this is far more economical, even with the gear we had to buy to outfit her properly. (Goodwill, yo. And my Buy Nothing Group came through for us a few times too.) It would not be worthwhile for me to work if we had to pay for normal preschool, particularly now that we're also paying for baby care.

There are also a wider range of options for what we want the school schedule to be than a lot of schools will have. Many have either five full days a week, or three full days. That's it. Even worse, many schools don't even offer part-time care because they don't have to. Since I only work three days a week I looked into that as an option and could practically hear crickets. Preschools and daycares in the area are at such a premium that they fill up very quickly. At this school we had a wider range of options for what we wanted to do. For both this year and next, five mornings a week has been the right balance for us between school and being home, but that was one of about six different options to choose from.

The Takeaway

I assumed, at the start of the year, that the kids in such a school would pretty much all be similar in temperament to mine: adventurous, riotous, energetic. I was so pleased to see that that wasn't true, though. One of her good friends is a little boy who's much quieter than she is. We've had a few playdates and when I mentioned to his mom that he's so much quieter and more reserved than the other kids she said that she'd been hoping outdoor school would open him up a little bit more, which it had. It makes me love this style of school all the more, to know that it works well for both gregarious kids and for the shyer, quieter ones.

I figured that we would be able to meet some like-minded families, parents who didn't tell their kids not to climb so high or run so far, parents who weren't constantly reminding their kids that life is dangerous. And we did! I really like the parents as well as the kids, it was such a great group. We've met up with several families outside of school and are planning many more get-togethers this summer.

At the end of the school year, all the parents of the younger kids were trying to figure out who would be returning next year, who we could count on our kids seeing in the fall. It was gratifying to know that our Munchkin is in such high regard among her classmates, because no matter what else she is she is intensely social. She managed to befriend the shy kids as well as the outgoing ones, spanned the age gap (her November birthday might have helped, as she was sort of in between the younger kids and the older ones), played with boys and girls, and generally did a great job of befriending everyone. I'm so proud of her.

I really, really appreciated how the teachers handled the kids and any conflicts that arose. In fact, I appreciated our teachers all around. They were so patient, so kind, and so enthusiastic. They worked hard to redirect the kids when something was going sideways, something I could be better about myself, and really worked at teaching to all of the kids as individuals. I learned several tricks from them that have made life for me a bit easier. It was obvious right from the start that they are teaching outdoor school because they are passionate about nature and about the kids learning, growing, and being in nature. I cannot say enough good things about them.

We did have one minor misunderstanding with them, because they simply did not see our kid as we do. This is natural and normal, since kids behave differently for their parents than they do for just about anyone else. The teachers mentioned several times that she complained about being hungry at school, or being cold, and we explained that we did our best but mornings were often difficult with her. Getting her dressed as appropriately as we could (it took most of the year before she figured out that being warm inside the house does not mean that she will be warm outside of it) and getting her fed was sometimes just a tantrum-filled battleground. She'd take two bites of the breakfast she had asked for, then declare herself full. No amount of coaxing, cajoling, or warnings could get her to take another bite. And when it came to getting on warm clothes or rain gear, oh boy. If you've never tried to forcibly dress a 4-year-old who's resisting you in every possible way, it's quite the challenge. You'd think she has twelve hands and legs instead of the two. She'd scream at us that she didn't need rain gear when it was clearly, obviously pouring down rain outside. Making her go out on the porch to feel the temperature and check out the weather only sort of helped.

The teachers did not see the tantrums, however, because she never threw them at school. Until one of the snow days. Luckily I was home, because I got a call halfway through the morning asking me to come pick her up. "She is currently safe, but she's soaking wet and refusing to put on her jacket. I just don't think it will continue to be safe for her to be out in the cold any longer." Apparently they'd been trying to get her to put on her jacket for the better part of an hour and, despite shivering and being soaking wet, she was howling and crying and throwing an epic fit. When I picked her up the teacher looked at me and said, "I finally understand what you mean when you say that mornings are a battle." Having that mutual knowledge made life, on our end, so much easier. If she came to school with her breakfast in hand they were more understanding, and they were able to work with her on some issues so that she was better equipped to handle her emotions in the mornings.

Despite the morning fights (which have faded quite nicely toward the end of the school year), I'm amazed at how easy this year was. She sleeps better more consistently than she ever has before in her life, because she's been getting enough stimulation and activity most days. She has also matured in so many ways, and seems more self-assured. Sometimes it comes with a big helping of teenager-level sass ("I've got it, Mom!") but she's able to do so much more, and is more mindful of being careful when she needs to be. She's volunteered to help with chores around the house because she's so used to needing to help out at school. I mean, this doesn't work nearly all the time, but there are plenty of times when she'll just help out when she sees that something needs to get done. She also seems to understand better that we make her do chores not as a punishment but because we all live here so she's responsible for helping with the upkeep.

We've allowed her to do more dangerous tasks with less oversight as the year has gone on, because we know she can handle them. When she's learning things both at school and at home then it becomes more normalized. We can trust her to handle a knife since she knows the knife safety rules aren't something we're doing just to be mean but because they are important, no matter who is around. The other night, she cut up all of the broccoli for dinner, with only minor supervision from us. We were so proud of her, and she was proud of herself. As she should be! But we knew she could handle it, and part of that is because she's been handling saws and hand drills and other tools at school.

Seeing her handle these things has also helped us think of other ways that we can help her have more agency over herself and her world. Small things matter. We put a hook in the coat closet that's at her height, so she is responsible for hanging up her backpack and jacket every day. Some days this is an hour-long argument/delay because she just doesn't wanna, but she knows what's expected of her and, usually, she's pretty happy that we made the world accommodate her just a little bit better.

She's stronger in body (which did not help when we had to force clothes on her) and in her mind too. There's a certain level of learning to suck it up when you're going to be out in the cold rain all morning, so I've noticed that she complains less than she did before a lot of the time. There's less whining about certain things, more sighing acceptance. She understands, somewhat, that sometimes we have to do the hard thing, the un-fun thing, and that complaining won't get her out of it. This is huge for a small child.

One of the best things I did was to build in treats on some days. When I knew it was cold and pretty miserable, I'd try to ensure there was something fun waiting for her when we got home. Hot chocolate, or snuggling under a blanket on the couch and watching a movie. I think those little things made facing the next day more bearable and cut down on the number of days she said she didn't want to go to school. After all, most grownups use some sort of incentive to get themselves to do things they don't like or which are just harder to motivate ourselves to do. Children are no different.

I'm so glad that we found this preschool, and I'm even more excited for next year. We're off for the summer, but she's got one more year before kindergarten and I happily signed her up again. I look forward to next year even more, and I'm so excited to put what I learned this year into making next year even better.

Play of all kinds, but particularly outdoor play, is not given the pride of place in early childhood that it deserves. Kids and parents alike are increasingly divorced from nature, which is having terrible consequences. Everything from ADHD to poor vision to obesity is being linked to a lack of time spent outdoors. Forcing our kids to spend much of the day outside is a boon to their development. I'm not terribly concerned about a lack of nature time within my family, since we do spend so much time outside. Trips to the playground, time spent gardening or biking, going for walks, all mean that we spend more than the average amount of time outside. Still, more time outside is better. Humans evolved spending most of their time outside, after all. This school made all of us get more time outside since the grownups and the baby also had to participate in drop-off and pickup. Usually, pickup was at least a half-hour process of gathering gear and playing a bit more with friends on the way out of the park. On nicer days, this could stretch to an hour of extra playtime out in the fresh air. If I showed up early, Baby and I would walk around a bit. So school might have been for the Munchkin, but it was beneficial for the whole family. Can you see why I love this school?