October and Apples that Don't Fall Far from the Tree

It has been a challenging couple of months to say the least.  I feel like we are slowly but surely finding our way back to "normal".  Will is currently pain free and Emma's tummy troubles seem to be getting better as well.  I am now catching up on regular life and finally had a chance to go through the last two months of pictures.  Here's October...

The girls and I had a lot of time together this month as Will dealt with a stuck kidney stone.  We enjoyed many picnics together in the great outdoors.  I will miss these picnics now that the weather is colder, and I will miss the relatively mess-free clean up of meals eaten al fresco too.

 

Before Will's kidney troubles started, we purchased two apple trees, a pear tree and a pair of blueberry bushes on clearance at our local nursery.  We plan to train the two apple trees pictured below into an espalier form against the west wall of our garage to save on space.  I am itching to get at least two more varieties of apple trees for the east side of our garage, however I think we may have already bitten off more than we can chew - or store.  We now have six blueberry bushes, 15 feet of raspberry bushes, 16 square feet of strawberries, a peach tree, a pear tree, and two apple trees plus our seasonal assortment of veggies and herbs.  If I had done it right, I would have researched the trees first and figured out that it would be a good idea to make sure each variety of fruit we have ripens at different times so that we can have a steady flow of fruit instead of an overabundance at one time.  Nothing like trial by fire though, and I am steadily researching fruit tree care now.  I have found some very interesting facts including the seeds that Johnny Appleseed famously planted across the United States were actually mostly used for cider because no two apple seeds are the same.  His random planting of thousands of seeds created thousands of apples with just a small percentage of them edible to eat raw.  The apple trees we bought and that most fruit comes from are cuttings grafted onto roots that don't even belong in the fruit family.  That is the only way to ensure that a Red Delicious, or Gala, etc. contain the same qualities in each new generation of plants.

So apples and children grow much the same way and the saying that the "Apple doesn't fall far from the tree" is actually more about nurture than nature! 

 The girls loved playing in the leaves this year, and had a blast jumping in the leaves and taking "tarp rides" as Will took the leaves to the compost pile on a giant tarp.  We believe Will's kidney stone started moving when he was raking up the fall leaves.  Because of the kidney stone, I had to finish the fall clean up myself which was a serious workout.  Thankfully my dad and brother came by and helped me out.  My hat is off to Will for tackling the leaves each year by himself!

In fact, my hat is off to a lot of people this past month.  First, to Lucy and Emma for being so flexible with any given moment us having to drop what we were doing and rush Will to the ER for morphine when his stone decided it was time to try and move again.  My hat is off to my family and friends for being there for us for last minute childcare and meals.  If it wasn't for you, my kids surely would have lived off of hot dogs and mac and cheese and a steady diet of iPad videos in waiting rooms.  Here they are below, seeming happy and adjusted despite the chaos in our lives.

 In the below picture they are playing airplane.  They've never been on an airplane before, but I thought they captured the experience fairly well - doesn't the light from the window look like it is coming from a high altitude?

Will also did an amazing job maintaining his optimism.  I have always known that he was the optimistic one in the relationship, and not even a stuck kidney stone resulting in a three day hospital stay and three separate surgeries in one month could bring him down.  The other day I asked him if the chicken coop was wet.  The correct answer would have been, "Yes, it's wet."  His response is a classic example of the way his mind works, as he told me "It's mostly dry."

I think this next picture can be entitled, "Mini Me".  It turns out this apple doesn't fall far from the tree.  I hardly had to remind Will at all to take his medicine, drink water, not climb the stairs alone after surgery, etc.  Lucy would say things like, "Dad, what are you doing?!?  You can't pick me up and when's the last time you had a glass of water?  Sit down.  I'll get you a water."

Lucy seems to be a little adult this past month and now draws stick figures instead of just scribbles, can write her name and can recognize most of the letters of the alphabet and words like love, Mom, Dad, Luke and Emma.  She is also becoming quite analytical, as displayed in the following conversation after we watched Will's high school homecoming parade.  "Dad, why did your students throw all that candy at me?"  Will: "They must like you."  After a pause, Lucy then said, "But dad, you like me and you don't throw candy at me."

Stay tuned, I promise to post November in a nutshell soon!