Year In Review: 2011, mostly

A year ago today I was about 6 months pregnant and we were packing up the white schoolbus for our open-ended exploration of Northeast Missouri.  Since that time many things have happened.
Today we made a list of the major events of the year which I am going to post here to share.  Following this list, I will post a second list that lays out the completed tasks on our home renovation project (which began in April 2011).  Amazingly, these two lists occurred in the same span of time!  Yet, neither of these lists begins to account for the interpersonal reality of raising four children, the chores and care needs of our many animals, the challenge of procuring and preparing meals and even tending our own needs and hygiene!

This year was astounding for me.  There was a frame of abundant beauty that held all of these events and accomplishments so that, though looking at it all at once it might seem to be "too much", for me this year has been like a gift.  It has been the most incredibly vibrant year of my life and I am deeply honored to have had Gavain dancing it with me so gracefully.

The short version is that Gavain and I are super-heroes.  Here is a longer version: 

• Drive Texas-Missouri in schoolbus motorhome
• Stay in trailer park in Kirksville for one month without car (riding bicycles)
• David has random freakout and takes legal action to dominate Dana's parental rights
• Shop for homes in NEMO
• Purchase Edina house (close April)
• Dana to Oregon to scoop up Simon(and David) (gone 6 weeks (stayed extra month to accommodate David).
• Dana unwelcome at Reba/Kara’s community.  Tension.
• Dagny gets sick (whooping cough or otherwise)
• Dana served papers to cut off her parental rights
• Dana plays the politics assuring David that she will meet slander with slander in court battle
• David changes his mind and decides to become her lover again, turning on charms, retracts legal action.
• Gavain’s father discovers he has cancer and undergoes treatment
• Reassert ownership of van and revive van
• Dana and David establish written and signed Baseline Simon Co-parenting Agreement. 
• Drive Oregon-Missouri in blue van pulling trailer packed full
• 3 months of supporting David financially and otherwise
• Dana to hospital for getting baby-belly squished between trailer and van (gravity issue)
• Gavain spends 8 weeks without family initiating house renovation
• Ducklings/goslings arrive
• Grandma Terri visits Gavain (April 2-7)
• Gavain turns on water to house
• Run out of vegetable oil sources for fuel
• Dana dives into flurry of house renovation for final 6 weeks of her pregnancy
• Adopt 3 kittens from Larry
• Gavain gets hot water supply to house going
• Grandma Terri visits (June 16-July 2)
• Andrew, Andria, Yaya, Bodhi visit
• Egon and Nana Debby visit in May;  Egon decides to stay in Missouri
• David one-week Possibility Alliance visit (we keep Simon most of visit)
• Children fall in love with “Lucy” (aka “Missy”), stray dog washed up during storm
• David and Simon train trip to east coast and back (Amtrak debacle)
• David asks us to support him getting work done and neglects to respect others’ boundaries at crucial time
• Huge windstorm (rolls chicken house, blows down turbine, etc.)  
• Tillwyn is born at home
• Drought begins
• 25 chicks arrive with goslings
• Various natural deaths of various baby birds
• Freak accident slices open Gavain’s arm -lifeflight to Quincy (cut through artery, 4 tendons and half of nerve)- Emergency surgery- David tends three kids and animals
• Visit from Gavain’s father
• Larry teaches dressing river bass
• Second surgery (reconstructive) on arm with Dr. Philpot (and numerous trips to Quincy for doctor visits and therapy sessions)- David holds down the fort again
• Chicks/predator massacre
• Pick up drunk and desperate Jason (a new friend)
• Egon trip to New Jersey
• Many visitors (Terri (July 21-26), Anala and family, Sarah, Ted, Liat, Peter and wife, Brian and partner, Debby and John (with Cammy)
• David gets letter from “Heartaculture” ousting David from community government into “renter” status
• Dana and Gavain host own wedding at Edina house
• Dana and Gavain get married again (legally, at a church)
• Gavain and a loved one experience passion and tension
• Dana completes recovery from birth
• Gavain relearns how to use his arm as he heals
• Jason as housemate and projects co-manager for 3 months
• Make offer to Karlene for side lot (rejected)
• David begs us to keep Simon while he returns to Oregon, claiming that it would facilitate his rapid follow-through on shutting down his life in Oregon before his intended ASAP move to Missouri (but he refuses to commit to a specific timeline for this transition)
• Jason develops parasitic theft behavior to support his alcoholism
• Flies!
• Gavain begins demolition of neighboring greenhouse/materials glean
• Jason asks children to hide/lie to their parents
• Dana and Gavain have their process of trying to help Jason, reaching their limit, and asking him to leave
• Send Jason off to east coast
• Jason steals camera and netbook and neglects to repay debts
• Dagny and Egon start new school
• Simon begins head start
• Grandma Terri visits Oct 4-14
• Adopt 15 retired laying hens to be food
• Eden visit for 5 days
• Missy (the stray dog) discovers the fun of poultry torture
• Andrew/Andria/Yaya/Bodhi visit
• Egon stuff and pets delivered (3 Muscovies and more chickens)
• Halloween of Vampires
• Dagny continues to cough/chronic runny nose.  Take her off of dairy.
• Gavain slaughters many birds, a couple geese go to Possibilty Alliance.
• Family attends Harvest Festival at Possibility Alliance, meets neighbors
• Dagny spins out of connection culminating in her removal from kindergarten.
• Begin keeping fishtank and many fish deaths
• Ongoing tension with David’s abandonment of Simon and his own integrity
• Fail most of fall and winter to find a source of seasoned firewood (burn lots of wet green wood!)
• Gavain travels to Oregon to visit Kite, Mariner, and kaseja
• Host family Christmas in Edina (Debby and John visit)
• Missy is officially abandoned to us, we are unable(after many efforts) to rehome her, we take her to animal shelter
• Gavain surprise Christmas visit to Florida (stomach sickness attack again)
• Aurora the rat dies (illness), 3 new rats adopted, Astra the rat dies (cat),
• Predator picks off many birds one by one
• Dagny Bloom begins to go by alternate name “Poppy Vespertine”
• Dana delivers Poppy to Houston for her two-month stay (Gavain stays home with boys)
• Barter exchange trades goose trio for “bred” rabbit doe (not pregnant, it turned out)
• White tent blows across yard in windstorm, taking out new wind-turbine pole installation and destroying tent
• David "gets stuck" in Oregon, in defiance of the terms of the Baseline Simon-Coparenting Agreement.  Document rendered impotent and void.  
• Grandma Terri visits (Feb 1-9)
• Locate source of seasoned wood South of La Plata
  remove old furnace from basement
  new rain gutters installed
  outside of house scraped and primed
  clothesline installation
  inner fence installation
  outer fence installation
  compost bins set up
  quilt insulative curtains for bus
  paint bus
  put bus down into yard
  install solar panel
  install windturbine
  establish electrical system in bus
  dig trench
  build roof over back porch
  repair roof over laundry room
  install duck weathervane
  install cat door
  move in piano
  reinforce kitchen floor
  paint laundry room lavender
  greywater diversion install
  rainwater catchment install
  repair/replace rotten/broken boards (front porch)
  build garden beds
  construct kitchen pantry
  kitchen cabinet demo/re-install
  install mosaic tile countertop
  plumb bathroom
  plumb kitchen
  install water lines
  new wind turbine assemble/paint
  repaint kitchen oranges
  install front door threshold
  plant pear trees
  repair screen doors
  construct front gate
  install bird yard fencing and gate
  new electrical wiring of entire house
  remove plaster (two rooms?)
  lathe/insulation removed from three rooms
  drywall, tape, mud, finish mens room
  drywall, tape, mud, finish warm room
  insulate men’s room (cellulose)
  insulate warm room and women’s room (fiberglass)
  install six new double-pane windows
  paint men’s room tealish
  paint warm room butterish
  remove all trim from three rooms and label
  replace trim men’s room and warm room
  establish wood piling systems
  install large white outdoor tent
  build/obtain chicken/duck house
  construct winter goose shelter
  cart up and lay insulation in attic
  hoist up and install hotwater tank in attic
  solar hot water panel built
  install chimney for kitchen stove
  install tile hearth and walls for kitchen stove
  install tile hearth warm room
  hardibacker/tin wall warm room
  move in and install wood cook stove
  move in and install jotul wood heating stove
  install chimney liner, etc.
  re-point chimney
  furnish home
  create recycling system
  plumb two thermosyphon loops
  repaint play room (blue)
  paint bathroom (green)
  install attic lights
  install basement lights
  demolish drop ceiling in kitchen
  create pot rack
  strip bus of installations and furniture
  rebuild basement door
  strip lead paint/prime/paint/re-glass back door
  begin demolition of neighboring greenhouse/harvest lumber/supplies
  re-frame west wall men’s room
  paint and install large bookshelves in warm room
  construct 11 foot Christmas tree
  create rabbit home and gates for kitchen
  restore james washer
  tung oil finish kitchen cabinets
  install knobs kitchen cabinets
  Install kitchen sink, faucet, drains
  recast front walk paver
  install wide variety of outlet covers/hooks/shelves/racks/etc.
  take down inner fence
  construct goose nests/spring-ize duckhouse 
  

difficulty with new psychic relay

Birth of Tillwyn

Every new day seemed that it might be the day that baby would decide to arrive.  Every day I thought to myself "maybe there's something else I could be doing to help my body feel ready to have this baby!" and we speculated all the time that maybe she was waiting for the solstice or the full moon or a good thunderstorm or fathers day or to share a birthday with so-and-so.


Gramma Terri was visiting and working very hard every day to support me and our family's needs, hanging laundry, taking the kids on adventures, and even hauling gravel and mowing the lawn!  I felt great pressure internally to get the baby out before her two week visit was over so that she could *at least* hold her granddaughter before she would need to return home.


I'd visited a doctor a few times in the prior month or so and knew that I had been dilated to 4 centimeters as of 3 weeks prior to this day, June 29th.  I'd actually lost my mucous plug at 38 weeks.  I felt my body could hardly be any readier, and sometimes I almost worried that I might be going to birth the baby without going into labor at all--that she might just fall out when I was pooping one of these days;  I figured maybe that is why some women accidentally birth in the aisle of the grocery store...


All the same, I was staying active, lifting heavy things, running to chase a toddler, mowing the grass and I even did some jumping jacks trying to inspire my body to eject the little one.
And, I kept up a conscious effort to maintain my patience.  Two of my other three children had been approximately 42 weeks gestation at onset of labor and there was a good chance this one would join the club.


At 41 weeks and 5 days along, around 3 o'clock in the afternoon, I came to notice that my pre-birthy braxton hicks contractions seemed to be coming about every 5 minutes apart.  I sat in a chair and timed them for a half hour until it was time to pick up the kids from the summer school bus stop.  We'd waited a little too long and would be late walking so Gavain and I drove Terri's rental car there and as we stood waiting for the kids we talked (for the hundredth time) about how maybe today was the day.  The contractions stayed regular until, when we got back to the house, they shifted into something more.  I had a labor contraction, standing alone in the bathroom, staring at nothing, recognizing that the wait was over.  Then I went pee and wiped, finding blood.  


I walked into the bedroom where Gramma Terri was cooling off by the window AC and told her that it seemed that I was beginning labor.  She gave me a very supportive and encouraging hug, apologizing profusely for her onion breath (which I couldn't smell!) and said she was ready... it was just for me to get the two youngest kids packed up, and she would sweep them away to the hotel.  I then set to work slowly packing the kids up while my crampy contractions distracted me...I felt the fog of labor creeping in and it was difficult to remember what I'd packed and what I hadn't and where to find the things I wanted to pack.  The house was abustle with children and conversations and who-knows-what-else.  I felt a jumble of calm excitement, irritation (at the kids' clatter and chatter), and appreciation that I really wouldn't have to have little ones at this birth (as I did my last birthing).  My brain was trying to plan what to do with the last of my time that would be, perhaps, quite short, before baby was with us.


Terri left with the kids, and the manly birth team was set:  Gavain(my fiance(now husband) and father of this baby), David(father of my toddler), and Egon(my 9 yr old son).
I went down to the basement to sort recycling and Egon came down with me;  I showed him how to do this himself, because I'd been meaning to do that for some time.  We probably talked about that I was in early labor.  Gavain came through the basement working on a project and asked for my help with it at one point.  I don't even remember what the project was because of the labor-mental-fog, but 


I told him that Terri had taken the kids and that I was thinking this was it.  He smiled supportively and probably asked if there was something I wanted him to do for me.  I think that's what happened but I might be making that up!   (this was less than a week ago, mind you).  Gavain knew that my birthplan was basically:  get the little kids out of the space, labor on my own unless I ask for something, and let Gavain know when baby is coming.
When I came back up into the house I asked David to help me time my contractions (hey, its something to do!)...I would call out "time!" and he would tell me how long it had been since the prior contraction.  At around four minutes apart I got too involved in my own process to remember to call out to David.  I gather that he continued to time then anyway, by listening to my vocalizations (I guess!).


Egon, my nine-year old was in and out of my space, which was mostly the bedroom (a sleeping-room currently shared by two adults and three children).  He made me laugh a lot (he is *very* funny!) in between many contractions.  He was helpful to me and others during the birth, running here and there on short errands.  At some point, he (and David?) gathered flowers outside and placed them in vases around the house;  it was a splendid contribution to my sense that I was being supported.
In another moment, I realized that I felt stinky and took a quick showerbath.


Things seemed to me to stay about the same for the first couple of hours (total guess on that time estimate).  Then, I felt that I probably wasn't progressing as quickly as in my two prior births because I was hanging out with my charming but *pesky* kid!  And!  It was sunny outside!  It was very strange to me to be laboring with broad daylight streaming in the windows.  For that matter, I wanted to go outside and be with the birds (our ducks and geese) for a while, but didn't want to alarm any passers-by if I suddenly found myself in transition in the yard.


Well, and I was naked and having trouble deciding what to wear!  It didn't make sense to my inner-creature to put on clothes, but I did end up throwing on a little shirt/dress for a quick dash into our front yard.


We had had a large bluejay nest on an altar-like surface in the living room.  It was falling apart so I tossed it out and decided to replace it with the beautiful little abandoned robin's nest from the short tree in our front yard.  Robins were a reoccurring theme in this pregnancy.  And the nestbuilding and awaiting nest has been a theme in our anticipation of the birth as well as in my engagement with Gavain.  I tossed into the nest a sprinkling of rounded blueish rocks that the children had collected down in the "crick" (I'd been cleaning and didn't have another place for them);  they symbolized the members of our family to me and they looked perfectly graceful there.  During the labor, Egon made a large gods-eye for the baby with green and ivory wool yarn and two sticks that he found in the yard and glued together in an x.  This also joined the altar.  And I remembered kaseja!  We'd planned to burn a candle from kaseja, representing her being with us at the birth.  Gavain jogged out to the bus to fetch it, brought it in, and got it lit up by the side of the bed I'd made up for the labor.  Now then!  We were ready for this!


I also posted online in a couple places an announcement that I was in labor.  


I spent most of the rest of the labor that I remember in the bedroom folding laundry and filling up the new linen closet with more and more linens.  Later I set to re-making the other two beds in the room.  I visited the toilet now and then to finish clearing out my poops.  There, I would stop doing and just be for a moment. The very act of sitting on the toilet is a very efficient way to help labor progress, I find.


Gavain passed through a few times asking how he could help and running off again for this or that.  At one point he asked if I'd mind if he used a power tool to cut a hole in the wall for a cat door and I gave my approval.  I greatly enjoy his enthusiasm for this type of project and it was pleasant to me to know that he was following his bliss.  The sound did not bother me in the least because I was deeply in my own experience now.

The menfolk got together my birthing music (Bjork's album, "Vespertine")...it was something I requested well into labor; they somehow acquired the music online.  (This album is awesome for birthing...nothing else that I've found stands up to it!)  

I don't remember much from here.  Gavain has compiled a video, from multiple clips taken by David, which does a better job of conveying the last 45 minutes of the labor than my memory does!        

*          *          *

Gavain joined me in the final phase of my labor and we welcomed Tillwyn together.  To those people who describe the pushing phase of labor being "easy" compared with transition:  This is not always the case!  I mean...I guess I mean that big babies really do feel more uncomfortable to birth than do average sized ones.  That is the extent of my experiencial knowledge of the matter.  At least, until her head was out, I was experiencing sensations that the wimpy parts of me would have had me run away from!  She was somewhere at or above 10 lbs at birth, 21inches long.  Born at 8:05 pm June 29th in Edina, Missouri!

Now, after she was born, you will see (if you view the video), I make a bunch of strange girlish sighing sounds.  I am embarrassed about this, and the best thing that I can think of to say about it right now is that its much better than after Simon's birth!  

She was so *mad* about being born.  She cried so much and so loudly after her birth.  I thought I was surely in for having a firecracker of a daughter!  Her umbilical leash was so short that I was unable to hold her, let alone nurse her, after her birth.  We were all somewhat paralyzed, unable to move or rearrange ourselves, until her cord stopped pulsing and could be cut.    

Surprisingly, she has, since her birth, been the most sweet, cooperative, and quiet baby that anyone would ever hope to know!  That's coming from a woman that has previously had 3 very "good" babies, I promise. 

She is associated with daylight.  She will not stay awake at nighttime;  though she kind of wakes up approximately once at night to nurse (we co-sleep), she otherwise sleeps until the next day.   

Her name is Tillwyn Calliope U'Prichard McGuire!  Tillwyn means "Friend of the Tiller" or "Captain's Right Hand" or "First Mate";  It is a name that Gavain and I derived from the name "Matilda" (meaning powerful battler).  Calliope is a rockin steam-powered organ-like instrument, but it is also the name of the greek goddess of epic poetry and eloquence, and it means "beautiful voice".  U'Prichard is her paternal name (passed down the paternal line); McGuire is her maternal name (passed down the maternal line).      

Hallelujah for life and for breath and for grace and for Tillwyn!

We might be homeowners soon!

Here's a very silly video we took for our mothers to see the house we've just made an offer to buy.
It was taken with the built-in webcam in Ian's (Gavain's nephew's) hand-me-down netbook.
It is also incomplete because we forgot to go through two whole rooms in the house. There are four total good-sized rooms that need to be insulated, walled(drywall, panelling, or otherwise), and painted.

And this is the video from the Listing Agent.

Neither of the videos capture the grandness or fine details that the house exhibits in real life, but they are fun anyway!

Egon's Papercraft

Gavain and Dana dancing!

Archery Unlimited

You might think it is strange that "Duck and Goose" are going hunting, but that is our intention. When we consider where our meat sources from, buying it from the supermarket, hunting becomes a kinder way to interact with animals, on the whole. Why not be vegetarian? Well, the resources needed to cultivate enough land to provide for protein needs (and other nutrient needs) has a significant impact on the environment as well. A deer, on the other hand, can absorb nutrients from plants that we can't even digest, and concentrate those nutrients so that we can get by with less. We can play the part of predator every once in a while and not become jaded to the extraordinary moment of life on Earth.

So, here we are, having gone down to Outdoor World, outside of Houston, Texas. Dana has misophonia, which is a debilitating aversion to certain sounds, including many mouth-sounds, like chewing. I have some of that (not as severe), but, more to the point, I am so easily startled by loud sounds that firearms are pretty much out-of-the-question for me. The idea of igniting gunpowder in close proximity to my ear is...unappealing. So, we're walking in to this outdoor sports emporium to consider whether to buy a high-powered air rifle for shooting small game, or whether to go with the choice that Dana and I, in our romantic hearts, would prefer: some sort of bow and arrow.

It turns out that the "small game" you can shoot with a $100-$200 air rifle is "varmints" of various small size: squirrels, rats, blue jays -- none of which are quite turning into succulent mental visions of dinner, as I stand before the racks of Daisies, and Remingtons, and the like. On the other hand, a crossbow is a lethal weapon, with which it is easy for a beginner to rapidly gain accuracy. However, there's just something sinister-seeming about a crossbow; it is the place where mechanized devilry intruded upon the grace of archery. Plus, they don't require the finesse of a vertical bow, and, even though our food will depend on it, I don't think that our egos will let us get away with doing something that doesn't require hardcore skill.

In the next aisle are compound bows, devices that use cams and pulleys to offset the draw-weight of the bow, so that when you have fully drawn back the string on a compound bow, you are resisting a fraction of the full force with which the arrow will be propelled forward. Once you have ruled out crossbows, however, it is fairly easy to dismiss compound bows in a similar way. They are complex; have moveable, breakable parts; have a sight; and generally are the archery world's point-and-shoot instrument. Compare this to what awaits in the last half of the last aisle: the longbow, the bow-and-arrow in its simplest, primordial form. Also, there is the recurve bow, its modern iteration, fibreglass-backed, and with limbs that arc away from the archer (when the bow is unstrung) to add extra force in a shorter bow. These are used in a style of archery called "Instinctive," where one does not use a mounted sight to align the shot with the target, but rather trains an arrow to the bull's eye by releasing the arrow from a practiced stance while visualizing the target in a kind of Zen state.

Needless to say, an hour and half later, Dana and I are walking out of Outdoor World with a recurve bow, a box of arrows, a practice target, and the expectation that, if we practice hard for two years, as our customer service agent said, we'll then be ready to start mounting broadhead points on our arrows and taking out deer. True, this is a bow for Egon (getting him this fulfills a plan that was hatched a couple years ago and stalled out before completion), and Dana and I are just "studying," to see if we actually like this form of archery. But, in the couple of weeks since then, we have found that we really enjoy this activity (as the agent warned us we would), and I have the sense that this is going to, in some way, become a cornerstone of our lives. At this point, Dana has a traditional longbow, I have a traditional longbow, Dagny has a little, pink longbow, we are on to our second target, we have shooting gloves and tabs and quivers (I am sewing mine out of pieces of an old leather coat I cut up), we have feather-fletched arrows; and, most importantly, we are hitting bull's eyes... well at least some of the time. Upon seeing her bow for the first time this evening, Dagny blurted out, "Where are the silencers?" She has been most excited about the small pompoms, made of yarn, that attach to her bowstring and dampen its vibrations, to still what noise a 10 lb. bow does make when it is loosed upon the world. Sure is a heck of a lot quieter than a shotgun. Our Merrie Band is on its way!