Still around!

Having a little bit of a stressfull week last week and didn't feel like writing. All is fine though and now we are all a little flu-y and tired and drained!
Tried out an afterschool program last week for my oldest so that he can be out in the community and meet some kiddos... try a drama program. It was a disaster! A one hour program ending with me being called into the directors office after. I was told that there was just no way... he cowered with his ears covered the whole time. I don't tell many people about the sensory stuff or autism spectrum stuff very often. If you see him he is outgoing, bright and completely functional the majority of the time. I felt like a complete tool for so many reasons. I should have mentioned it... maybe should have stayed for the first class( he is eight though and has taken a class before. I didn't want him to be the only eight year old whos mama stayed). I got a comment from another parent with a spectrum kid that was in the same class about school being the right place for kids like ours... it teaches them to just get used to it( with the whole loaded implication that we really shouldn't be homeschooling). Just all of the doubts that go along with it all... and I guess my denial at times where we go through periods where things are so much closer to what it is for regular families. The director suggested that he take a program with older kids and said that they would call me right away about that. They didn't call. We go this week to try an environmental club that is outside( quieter) and may be a good match. I don't feel like people understand... the disability seems invisable to them. I can see the eye roll or the glint in the eye when I do share things... like " yeah right... your kids are perfectly fine." sometimes they even say it out loud. Then something happens where it is obvious and then it feels like I am doing the wrong thing then as well. I think that there is something different that families with highly functioning spectrum kids deal with. Nobody can really see how far we have come or what we have had to go through to get to where we are now. Not a pity party or anything. Sometimes I just feel really lonely.
I watched an amazing movie last night called The horse boy. Here is the trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYkT_GndKtE
I found a place online where I could watch it streaming. What a beautiful movie. It symbolicly captured so much for me. Really really wonderful.

Didn't have the camera with me...

But today while picking crab apples in the orchard we saw a cougar!!!!!! At 2 in the afternoon, sitting in the middle of the road ( the one we had to take to get back home). Luckily we did have the binoculars with us , so we each had a chance to view it twice! It was really young and quite small. I was expecting to see a mum at anytime but we never saw her. We were pretty excited and nervous walking back home. we cut the trip short! I had to call the conservation officer because of the age of it, the lack of fear and the fact that it was in broad daylight. The fire cheif came to the house to visit and the conservation officer is now outside and will likely bring the hounds. So amazing... likely we will never ever see something like that again.

So the back story..

So the back story of the last post was this! I was out with the family for an after dinner walk and some random 40 something guy flashes us... not once but twice. Then waves and gives me the thumbs up. Right downtown in our teeny little town, main street in front of the post office. I couldnt believe my eyes. I have been flashed more than a handful of times in my life ( growing up in the city) but never ever when I was with my family. When I flipped out and yelled at the guy he said that he was sorry and had a couple of drinks and thought that we were someone else. Truly though, how drunk would you have to be to not notice that there were kids around. And he was by himself lurking on a property with that sort of manic high air about him looking like he was just waiting to do it again when we were on the way back home. hmmmm...Bizzarre.

Today my mama is coming up for a visit and we are going to the fall fair. Yippie! You know that I will be eying all of the yummy fleece! Hope the kids can cope. We have had an illness just trying to seep in , but not quite. The kids have been super stimmy and my youngest spent a couple of hours hitting himslf in the face yesterday. Not cool and stresses me out big time. It is sure hard for people to deny that it is autism when they see them in that state. My mom only sees them maybe twice a year for an afternoon or so, so hopefully this will go well.

It turns out....

Exposing yourself to me in front of my kids.... is a very bad idea. The kids got to see me in all of my glory when I absolutely flipped out at him. If I had a phone I definitely would have called the cops. ( sadly they often don't come out our way even for violent domestic abuse calls) Being flashed just infuriates me, let alone in front of my children. Enough to make me lose my shit. Gah!!

Almost school time... again!

Wow did the summer fly by! We have been spending the last week canning like crazy... peach conserve, blackberry jam, chutney, apple butter and the list goes on! Tried for the Oregon grape berries, but I think that that really hot spell did them in this year. Bummer though, because the Oregon grape jelly we made last year was our favourite.

Started a couple of tinctures , Oregon grape root as well as a whole plant echinacea. Hoping for some usnea when things get a little moister around here... maybe some hops and mullein? Trying to figure out what would be most beneficial for us this year. I worry about the boys with the flu because we have spent a ton of time in the hospital with their asthma. I have been getting them to enjoy herbal teas daily, with them helping to mix herbs for them... I am hoping that tea drinking can become a really enjoyable thing for them and then become an easier way to give complementary medicine! I have had some sort of bug this week, so I think I am in flu easing mindset overdrive! Started a batch of sauerkraut, kimchee and am being extra brave and trying a batch of Tibetan fermented greens. Our fermented ketchup turned out sooooo yummy. It tastes a little bit more like chili sauce maybe, but so yummy all the same. So between the ferments, fish oil , nourishing herbs and good resting, hopefully we can keep healthy this fall and winter.

I realised that I didn't take any pictures of the garden this year . It is winding down somewhat now but the tomatoes are just getting into full swing! Back to having yummy tender greens now that it is cooling down as well. I sure hope that we can get a cold frame together in time... I need to plant that NOW.

Meanwhile we have guests coming for the next two weekends, learning plans to write ( I will write a post later about the years possible plans for the boys) wool to wash before the rain comes. Papa still isn't back to work yet... got the word today though that the company landed a couple of bigger jobs coming in the fall. Good thing! It is really hard to make 1400 dollars a month stretch to get us through... won't be happening come the time where we have to heat the house. ( I don't like having to worry about feeding guests either... between you and I! lol) Trying to take advantage of the free fruit and am putting as much away as we can right now. The landlords haven't fixed the roof yet but the plan was to put insulation in the whole back of the house since there isn't any... it gets so cold back there... think 12 or 13 degrees all winter. We found a folding door today at the Re Store for 5 dollars(!) so that we can shut off the front of the house at night to keep the living area a little bit warmer. The bedrooms and living room are all in the front and we keep it at about 18 degrees all winter. It will be nice to be able to just heat the living room extra once in a while when you want to be a bit warmer. I closed the door today and realised how thankful I am to create that tiny bit of separation from the rest of the family. Our house is about 800 square feet... while it is plenty of room it still feels like we don't have privacy or much peace from each other. Today the boys watched a video, I shut the middle door and couldn't even hear them. I put on CBC radio loudly and they couldn't hear me... it was great!lol I am so much more productive when I am not overwhelmed by constant kid noise! ( between regular sibling noise, sound effects( ahhhhhh!), beatboxing and a heck of a lot of verbal stimming, this can be one noisy household!) Doors are a good thing.... a very good thing!

Ramble, ramble!

Family Record!

Nothing like burning off a wedding hangover ( 2 glasses of boxed wine just does me in... lol) like taking a big 6 and a half hour hike. Went to Paradise Meadows again, but this time went for the challenge of the 15.5 km hike!!!!! That is definitely our family record. Needless to say, we are all exhausted!

Plums!

Imagine us, strolling down the road, bedsheet and buckets in hand and helmets on our head ready for the harvest! Well elder son was actually wearing a big plastic Bobby hat... at least we always make the neighbours smile when they see us coming! We all spread out underneath the wild plum trees in the bush, each with a corner of the sheet in hand, cover our heads and squeeze our eyes shut as one of us shakes the tree. We went to our usual spot where we find little yellow plums that are just a bit larger than a really big cherry. Lucky for us we spotted a red plum tree too! More of a dusty pink and really pretty. Tonight we will sit and pit them... they arent the ones that are separate from the pit, so harly anyone even makes use of them... they can be a bit of a pain. But they make the prettiest yellow sunny jam ever. With the pink in there I think it will even be nicer. Since we discovered that we can use the jam to make a quick home made asian style plum sauce we are ready to make even more than we usually do. Yummy! I will try to dehydrate a batch as well...