thank you mom and dad, and the cycle of lifelong learning

starting 10:12 a.m.

i am utterly grateful to my parents for all they did while raising me. especially for the useful skills they taught me instead of just doing them themselves. i may not have liked having to go out and feed the animals in the morning and evening, but it did teach me responsibility. i may have gotten bored with gardening, but i knew how to plant things and how to tell when they needed something i could provide. i may not have liked the crunchy jeans and sandpaper towels that came from hanging them on the line, but i did know there was an alternative to throwing them in the dryer. i learned to do my own laundry early on, and have been doing all my own laundry since i was 14. i learned to cook at least 8 different meals, so i could feed myself (not well, mind you, but feeding myself poorly is still better than going hungry or getting fast food). i went on almost every grocery shopping trip and learned the layout of the store and the benefits of buying generic. likewise i learned the benefits and perils of shopping at goodwill. i learned how to use the hand tools and then the power tools in my dad's machine shed. i could drive the riding lawnmower and then the tractor and then the tractor-with-implements-attached. i know when the weather is right for making hay, and i have driven the tractor during all three stages of haymaking (cutting, raking, baling). i've been involved in the mad-dash hay bale collection process when we were racing those dark clouds.

this was my childhood, and it was good. i love knowing all these things. i love the memories of doing all these things. i'm absolutely glad that i grew up on a farm (albeit a recreational farm rather than a working one... though maybe that made the experience even better). but because i was a child and then a teenager, i missed some parts of the lessons and the knowledge, and now as an adult i have to fill in the blanks. things like stretching clothesline and having enough clothespins for all my laundry. things like how to tell when to harvest my vegetables. when are tomatoes supposed to turn red again? are they supposed to sit green on the plants for more than a month? where might i get a hand drill so jake can help with hardware projects? for that matter, where do i get a hand saw that's fit for cutting down a small tree?

i'm guessing that this is maybe how life is supposed to work. your parents lay down the ideas and some of the rudimentary skills, and then when you're an adult, you go back and fill in the gaps in learning either with outside resources, personal experience, or by calling mom when you need to roast a turkey or dad when you're trying to replace the old showerhead.

in other news, i wasted a batch of yeast bread dough the other day by letting it sit too long. i guess i'd gotten somewhat used to the ease and long timeframe of sourdough bread already! speaking of which, i should mix together some new starter tonight.