my aunt texted me this photo over the weekend with the question “who does this remind you of?” i had a hunch and was so excited when that hunch was correct: it’s a photo of my grandma driver (my father’s mother) when she was a little girl growing up in fort wayne, indiana. when i showed ramona the photo in the morning and asked her who it is, she said “mona.” i can see why:
the likeness is uncanny. and to see it make it through four generations blows my mind. i asked my grandma about the photo and she told me:
I suppose I was around three or a little younger since it doesn’t look like a November kind of weather. I can’t say I remember much about it except we lived across from the high school stadium and I am told when I was a little younger I ate a little box of garlic that was sitting on the back porch; I must have reeked. It is a wonder they didn’t give me away. The baby buggy I have in the garage, put together last summer by your Papa. Grandma Stowell had carefully shipped it out here many years ago, but it had been in [my aunt and uncle’s] garage all those years.
it’s an honor to have ramona look so much like my grandmother, gloria. she is one amazing lady: spunky and witty and full of love. it’s great to see ramona inherit –not only her adorable cheeks and chin– but also these personality traits that will certainly serve her well in her life. i love you, grandma!
i keep forgetting i’m pregnant. it is a really weird feeling to be moving along as normal and then all of a sudden a belly carrying a baby the size of a mango gets in your way. with ramona, i don’t think a second went by that i wasn’t aware there was a belly and a baby in that belly. but for some reason, this time around, i seem to think i can continue doing all the stuff i usually do when not carrying a child: advanced yoga, shaving my legs, trimming my toes, laying on my stomach comfortably, fitting into my favorite pair of jeans, carrying a heavy load. i go to do these things and almost every single time i find myself saying to myself, “oh yeah. that’s right. there’s a belly with a baby in it that’s in the way. better adjust your plan of action.” which is ridiculous bc i’ve undeniably got a pregnant belly.
i’m not small. i’m not huge yet but i’m certainly PREGNANT. definitely much bigger than these photos of me 18 weeks pregnant with ramona where i’m just exclaiming that, gee i think i popped. oh boy, i popped a long time ago with this little bugger. part of it is that i had a handful of extra pounds on me to begin with this time around. part of it is that my body just has decided to go straight to where it needs to go. “oh. i remember this. i’m going to need to make room for a little human. better get there now before it stretches me there.” thanks, body. i’m glad you’re efficient at what you need to do but i do wish i could remember that you’re doing it.
i’m not concerned about weight gain. i’ve never been one to shudder at the number on the scale. certainly not when i’m with child. i am concerned that it, this belly, keeps catching me off guard — it’s getting in the way too soon this time around! pregnancy was quite enjoyable for me for most of the time i was pregnant with ramona. this time? not as much. it’s just a little more, well, difficult than i remember it being. (little bug: when you read this when you’re older please be assured that this in no way takes away my love of you. babies of the family –of which i am one and you will be– are inherently a little more of a handful and i wouldn’t have it any other way). 21 more weeks of belly-ness. i can do it. i can do it!
women who had more than two, just how did you manage that craziness done to your body?! i know it can be done but it’s hard for me to wrap my head around it.
thrifted cardigan || thrifted allen allen maxi dress || thrifted moccasins (not pictured but i’m on a roll with thrifted amazingness so i wanted to keep going) || scarf from denver boutique inspyre || urban outfitters belt || [i have been living in this outfit. it’s so perfect for a bump in fall]
i gave ramona her first home haircut a while ago. i trimmed up the bangs and made sure all the weird, long old-man wisps were cut to the length of the majority of her hair. since then, it’s grown into a mullet, even with random trims i give her here and there. so it was time for the salon. i talked up the event to ramona for some weeks leading up to, ever since we ran into my stylist, kristy, at crema. since then, ramona would often ask about going to get her haircut.
she was a pro! she sat so still and serious: lifted her head, tilted her chin, looked straight ahead. i was giggling over how stoic and sober she was throughout the whole thing. and the final product? omg. it’s amazing. short bangs and a little bob. it suits her and her personality and her style so perfectly.
we celebrated with a trip to the zoo!
have you taken your child to get their hair cut? do you do cuts at home? how do they go? how do you get your little one to sit still?
this week, for the small business series, i speak w eva teague who owns and runs plowshares community farm, a small-scale pig farm in niwot outside of boulder. eva and i have chicago connections and i kept running into her at the boulder farmer’s market where she sells her heritage berkshire pork. it is the best. what eva is doing –raising little pigs outdoors on organic, whole food until they’re big, happy ones and then offering this meat to the public– is so important. if you haven’t been living under a rock then you know about the food crisis going on and you know we definitely need farmers like eva.
jp and ramona and i took a visit out to the farm this summer to say hello to eva and her pigs. she told us all about the production, how she got into it, what her plan for the future are.
|| what is plowshares? ||
Plowshares Community Farm is my farm. Currently we produce pastured Berkshire pork products but we’ll we expanding and diversifying next year to include mixed vegetables and a few other things. It’ll be a huge leap! I think people get confused by the “Community” part of the name, but it basically means that I’ll always be producing for the local community. I don’t want to get so big that I have to sell through Whole Foods and won’t have the chance to meet the people buying my product.
|| how did you get into this? what was your inspiration? ||
I worked on vegetable farms in Boulder for three years before getting my first pigs. I wanted to start my own project, and the people who I worked for at the time were vegetarians so I chose pork in part because it wouldn’t compete with what they were doing. Plus, pigs are fun and funny, and well-raised pork is delicious!
|| what had the process been from conception to execution? ||
When people ask me how I got started I tell them that I bought some baby pigs and figured it out from there. Unlike farming vegetables, you don’t need a lot of equipment like a tractor to start raising pigs or most livestock–although I sure could use a tractor now to manage the 18 acres I’m currently leasing. I think the decision I made early on to raise heritage Berkshires rather than some of the hybrid breeds that are more readily available in this area was really important: I started with a focus on quality that I plan to maintain as I expand the farm.
|| has starting and running this business been what you expected? easier or harder? what have the challenges been? ||
I think anyone who’s started a business for the first time has probably had a similar experience: there’s so much you don’t even know you don’t know, and then you just have to figure things out: from where to get funding to how to do your books to how to manage the pasture your pigs are on. There are always problems to be solved which means there’s always some challenge to keep me busy!
On a different note, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how many of my customers seek out my stand at market or even come out to the farm to buy pork in the winter. Their support means so much to me!
|| are you doing this solo or you have other partners/collaborators/helpers in the brand? ||
The business is mine but I’ve had a ton of help along the way, especially from my friend Mo McKenna. You’ll see her most Saturday mornings working with me at the Boulder Farmers’ Market.
|| who, if anyone, has helped w branding/website development/maintenance? ||
I made my own website using a Wix template. I came up with the idea for my logo–the happy pig in a green heart–and painted it on a banner that I hang at market. The digital version of the logo was created by Christopher Smith of “Tiny” (tiny house) documentary fame.
|| when did you start/open for business?||
I got my first baby pigs in March 2011 and started selling pork at the Boulder Farmers’ Market in August 2012.
|| where can your goods be purchased? ||
The best time to buy my pork is Saturdays at the Boulder Farmers’ Market: I bring the whole range of cuts to each market unless I’m out of something. We don’t have a regular storefront at the farm because I work a job in town and am gone a lot of the time, but if coming to the Boulder Market doesn’t work for you then you can contact me and set up a time to meet out at the farm.
|| what new/other businesses are you excited about in denver-area? or would you like to see in denver-area? ||
I’m especially proud of my best friend Jen Anderson-Tarver, who is an amazing home-birth midwife in the Denver area. I can’t imagine anyone else so gentle, knowledgeable, and caring as she is. Check out her practice at www.newleafmidwifery.com.
|| what’s your favorite place for food? ||
I work at a restaurant but try to cook at home when I can. I’m a little out of practice right now, but I hope to get back into the swing of it when I leave my job next spring to work on the farm full-time.
thanks, eva! readers, next time you need some pork, consider contacting eva to buy it directly from the farm. you’ll be supporting an incredibly local company that’s providing the best tasting pork you’ll ever have.
jp’s mom has stage IV breast cancer.
bam.
that’s how it felt to receive this news. seemingly out of the blue. but that’s how bad news arrives, isn’t it? it doesn’t gracefully edge it’s way into your peripheral and then tiptoe into your line of vision, waiting for you to acknowledge its shy wave from a little ways away, much like a guest in a receiving line at a wedding. no. it’s more like someone in a monkey suit jumping out from behind a couch when you walk into a dimly lit basement. it sucks.
first a lump. then a confirmation of a lump. then a biopsy. then cancerous results. then in more lymph nodes than projected. then in lung fluid.
bam. bam. bam.
i spent the better part of an afternoon in bed racked with grief, unable to move or catch my breath. having been dealt little to no tragedy in my life, this has been one of the heavier things i’ve had to “deal” with.
thank God for a close-knit family bc “deal with” it we are. i’m not sure what the proper response or plan-of-action is for a family that receives as troubling of news that, right now, we’ve got to get really serious about supporting our matriarch in fighting a battle she was not expecting to face. but i’m certain that the way i’ve seen my husband’s family band together –the way i’ve seen my father-in-law take the reins and be my mother-in-law’s greatest advocate and loyal sidekick– is not far from what i imagine to be ideal.
the two of them, my in-laws, they are doing this together. in addition to going to every appointment hand-in-hand, they’re researching and interviewing and keeping themselves open to alternative methods of treatment to supplement traditional treatments. there’s a hormone pill she’s taking (and eventually chemo and surgery) but there are also vitamins and a diet heavy in greens and superfoods and whole grains and exercise every day. and they are being honest and open and communicating to their community about what is going on: the good, the bad, the ugly, the encouraging, the tough news. and people are responding to this transparency with an outpouring of love and support and good vibes. i’ve watched the way my mother-in-law has, yes actually, embraced what life has thrown at her. she seemed to understand from the beginning (though i’m sure she’ll tell you it wasn’t as easy as i’m making it sound) that though she couldn’t change her diagnosis she could change the way she was going to live with this more intimate knowledge of the precariousness of life. it’s been truly beautiful.
and i’ve seen the five of us kids (jp, his three siblings, and me) change our outlook from one of complete devastation to one of camaraderie and joy at being able to look at this woman with new eyes, even more proud and more thankful to have her as such a huge part of our life than we already were; certainly working to take less in life and family for granted.
we don’t know all that is ahead for our family, for mary. it’s still strange to be placed overnight in the “there’s a cancer patient in the family” camp; i’m still digesting that this is, yes in fact, something that can happen to me (don’t we subconsciously live life assuming the bad things we hear about won’t happen to us?). we do know that, in just one month of hormone treatment, her cancer shrunk 15% and there was little to no sign of it in her pleural lung fluid. this is amazing. and we do know that survival rates for those diagnosed with cancer are higher for those who have a strong support system and, well, this has been built into our family from the beginning.
i’ll keep you posted.
photo by the most amazing, megan newton.
welcome
