“Mom, what’s that huge store that you went to that has cars in the middle?”

“I have no idea.”

“You know, it’s really big and there’s all these stores?”

“A mall?” I guessed.

“Yeah, a mall! I think we should go to a mall sometime.”

Does my son really not know what a mall it? Really? I’m semi-stunned.

Think what kind of culture shock he’s going to experience when he and his friends go to the mall to hang out.

Actually, I think he’ll have a blast. He’ll go berserk. He’ll probably hijack one of the security guard’s golf carts and take it on a zigzag joy ride through the hat kiosks.

Another recent conversation: we were driving through town and he said, “It makes me feel kind of sad.”

“What does?” I asked.

“That people buy their playhouses because they don’t know how to build them.”

“Yes well, not everyone knows how to build things.”

“Yeah, nobody knows how to do anything anymore.”

This conversation made me want to:

a. laugh—an 11-year-old sagely mourning a day and age he never knew
b. chortle—he appreciates our more hands-on lifestyle, yippee!
c. deliver a lecture—Let’s look at the big picture, sonny. Some of those playhouse-buying people can do things you’ll NEVER be able to do. Everybody has different gifts, so don’t look down your nose just cause you know something that someone else doesn’t.

I did none of those things. Instead, I kept my eyes on the road and just mm-hmmed.

As of late, he’s been getting a bunch of orders through his etsy shop.

“A bunch” is a relative term, of course. What I mean when I say “a bunch” is that it’s been keeping us busy. We’ve been spending whole mornings, and sometimes afternoons, making jewelry, book-keeping, emailing, and packaging up the items.

He’s doing more and more of the work himself—not only is he smashing the coins, but he’s coming up with new ideas, filing the coins, crafting the jewelry, addressing the envelopes, communicating with consignment shop owners (two have taken his jewelry), etc. He’s enjoying himself, too. He thrives when he’s king of his mountain—the more we become like equal partners (and less like bossy mom and recalcitrant son), the happier he is (and I am).

Over the last few months he has been gradually learning about good business etiquette and acclimating to my exacting standards. No longer does he argue (so much) when I tell him his handwriting isn’t neat enough or that a coin isn’t smashed properly. (Yes, I have standards for how we wreck things.)

For awhile there it was like pulling teeth (and it still is some days). It got so bad that I made him memorize Thomas Edison’s quote, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work,” and recite it to me multiple times every day. Now if he starts lagging, I just holler, “Opportunity, boy! Opportunity!”

The other day while I was photographing some custom-ordered necklaces, my son hauled down the baby head statue (an art project of my brother’s, modeled on [after?] Yo-Yo’s toddler head) and thunked it on the table. He and his sister adorned it with the jewelry and ordered me to photograph it.

“There is no way I’m putting these pictures in the shop,” I said. “We’d probably lose customers with a head like this.”

Then they mounted the head on a stool and dressed it.

Later—no pictures, sorry—a bridal Miss Beccaboo married it.

And even later I walked into the room and found it talking on the phone, a newspaper in its pocket and a puppy dog trailing behind.

This same time, years previous: roasted rhubarb, I have nothing to say (ha!), pounding the pulpit

Hold on to your hats, people. Have I got a drink for you!

It’s springy!
It’s light!
It’s refreshing!
It’s cold!
It’s sour!
It’s zippy!

And yes, there’s a little alcohol in it. And I had two of them last night.

Wanna make something of it?

It takes two syrups to make this drink, one rhubarb and the other rosemary. Right before serving, mix the two together, add rum, lemon, and ice, and you’re good to go. It’s an absolutely delightful experience.

The original recipe says to combine everything and serve—it makes eight servings. I contemplated doing that but then decided a cup-and-a-half of rum just for me might be a bit much for one evening.

Aren’t you impressed with my discretion?

So I kept the syrups separate and mixed just enough for a moderate one-person serving (promise) at the last minute.

You can cut out the alcohol all together, if you wish. (What a weird wish that would be, but to each his own, right?) And the rhubarb juice is fantastic by itself. I imagine it would also be good added to iced tea or lemonade or limeade or orange juice or… you get the point. Of course, rum added to all those drinks would be good, too. You get the point.

Rhubarb Daiquiri
Adapted from Aimee of Under the Highchair and she, in turn, got it from Bon Appetit magazine.

3 cups chopped rhubarb
2 1/4 cups water, divided
½ cup rosemary sprigs and needles
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons lemon juice, divided
1 ½ cups rum or tequila
lemon wedges, for garnish
rosemary sprigs, for garnish

For the rosemary syrup:
Combine 1 cup of water with 2 tablespoons sugar in a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Add the rosemary, lid the pan, and remove from heat. Steep for 5 minutes before straining the liquid and discarding the rosemary. Pour the syrup into a little jar and chill.

For the rhubarb juice:
Put the rhubarb, the 1 1/4 cups remaining water, the ½ cup of sugar, and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice in a blender and whiz for a little. It will be pulpy but juicy. Strain the mixture, pressing on it vigorously with a spoon to extract all the liquid. Discard the pulp. Pour the juice into a quart jar and chill.

To mix for a group:
Combine the syrups with the remaining lemon juice and rum. Divide between 8 ice-filled glasses and garnish with lemon wedges and rosemary sprigs.

To mix individual drinks:
1/3 cup rhubarb juice
2 tablespoons rosemary syrup
2 tablespoons rum
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Mix, pour over ice, and garnish with a wedge of lemon and sprig of rosemary.

This same time, years previous: how to get your bedding/house/kids clean all in one day, classy rhubarb pie with cream cheese pastry

We finally got around to torching our burn pile. It’s been an eyesore for a good long while. Of course, having a burn pile in the back field isn’t without perks—it furnished a fort or two and provided lots of scavenging fun. But it was time it went.

The kids were stoked. They helped haul junk (and more junk) to the pile. They hovered. The fire got lit and then they hooked up the line of hoses.

(I’m not sure why that wasn’t done ahead of time. I’ll have to ask my husband.)

Sweetsie packed up a bag, grabbed her coat, and took off for the pasture down yonder where she plunked herself in the very middle of the field.

Which made me nervous because what if the fire suddenly spread and here we all were and there she was and—? and—?

Well, I just didn’t like the idea of a wall of fire separating me from any of my babies. If we’re going to have a wall of fire, I like for all of us to be on the same side of it.

Not that we had a wall of fire. But even with a puny fire, I still get a wee bit nervous.

Here one of my chairs is going up in flames.

I like to buy chairs that I think will be really nice once my husband glues, screws, or nails such-and-such. Then my husband, who does not like to fix up pieces of junk, gives me and my chairs the passive aggressive treatment—in other words, nothing happens—and all my not-quite-junk chairs end up tossed into the barn loft, otherwise known as the Chair Graveyard.

Somehow—how?—one of my chairs ended up on the burn pile. Perhaps I’ll have to upgrade from a chair graveyard to a chair urn.

My husband walked around the fire scooping up the debris around the edges and tossing it back onto the center of the pile.

Or at least he tried to.

Youch! Geez, that’s hot!

He had to inspect his arm to see if he had any arm hairs left.

Silly man.

The fire was burning happily when my husband happened upon a dead chicken in the field.

Hey, look at this! A dead chicken!

Is it really dead?

Perhaps a little CPR…

JOHN! DON’T!

Just kidding. Let’s roast it instead.

A little later a chicken head was discovered.

What in the world? Somebody is killing my chickens! my husband roared.

Honey dear, I chided. Why do you say someBODY? Why not someTHING or some ANIMAL? Nobody cares enough about your chickens to bother sneaking onto our property to kill them. It’s so uncivilized to talk that way.

My husband was peeved. Something must be done. He turned his attention away from the raging fire, jumped on the Dixie Chopper, and set about cleaning up around the chicken pen. No more little chicken-killing rodents were going to get his little biddies if he could help it!

My daughter stopped him mid-mow.

Papa, there’s another dead chicken!

My son, hands on hips, came to investigate.

He poked it with his toe.

Sure enough. This one was dead in the pen. My son carried it off by the foot…

And launched it into the inferno.

It’s a flying chicken! Wheeeee!

(Thanks to a freshly mowed chicken yard and a once-again electrified chicken fence, it’s been over 48 hours since the last reported dead chicken. Things are looking up.)

My husband and son stayed outside later than the rest of us to tend to the fire.

The next afternoon, despite the rain, the two older kids stirred up the coals and got the fire going again.

They tried to burn a tree trunk. It kept them occupied for hours.

Which makes me think we should always have a burning burn pile on hand—you know, like a sandbox or a kiddy pool, but a bit more exciting.

This same time, years previous: strawberry cheesecake ice cream