Our septic plugged. My favorite kind of catastrophe. Sewage pouring out of the clean-out in our yard. Sigh. The dogs thought it was heavenly snack time. After 6 hours of snaking the system, our very clever plumber decided to try a super plunger, basically blowing a bunch of air into the system to see if it could dislodge the issue. It worked! "The Issue" turned out to be a shredded Lochlan shirt. I had noticed two days before that his shirt was absent from his body, and I checked in the "discard" area where he normally throws his shredded shirts but hadn't found it, so the mystery hadn't yet been solved. He had gone almost 2 weeks without hulking out so I was hopeful that we were past that particular fixation. Wrong. He had chosen to discard the remnants into the septic clean-out closest to our house. It created a rather effective plug in the entire system.

We make so much progress. I see Lochlan develop and I see him blossom, especially under the care and training of the caregivers he has been so blessed with. On the tough days, when he's most inclined to be destructive or naughty, I take him to the forests to wander. He has learned to love the forest and all it has to offer. He can hike quite a fair distance and he seems to love most of our adventures. The sleepless nights like last night, the periodic outbursts, the hulking out, and the almost constant eating challenges keep life interesting and I find I'm never fully at ease, but I have much to be grateful for. And on the whole, the boy is a constant work in progress, not regress.

We've been tackling some late summer projects and are about to take on some more in preparation for the coming winter months and hopefully heavy snowfall. We've got flower beds to build for our underground greenhouse, horse stalls to prep for snow/rain overflow, covered chicken pens to build so the birds have a place to run around even in inclement weather, and then I'm trying to can food while produce is fresh and available.

The boys and I happened upon a wild elderberry forest a few days ago. We were so overjoyed! The trees had been substantially picked by the bears and other wildlife, but we found over 30 trees, so we still picked more than enough for our needs this year. We'll be making organic elderberry syrup in the coming weeks. Now you know what you're getting for Christmas.

Though we are trying to be productive and also prioritize school, we are admittedly distracted by the beauty outdoors. The monsoons have left our forests green and blossoming with wildflowers. We wander every day.... sometimes far, sometimes just a little.

On the hard days a good dog and my hill goes a long way...