CONGRATULATIONS LIZ!

Liz from The Reed Family is my newest giveaway winner!

For all of you who were hoping, I will have a tutorial up soon so you can make your own sweater hats! Liz's hats are going to be the photos for the sew-a-long. :)

Last Chance

Last chance for the giveaway peoples... send your comments here.

I'll announce the winner tomorrow! :)

Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

I knew the song of course, but I had never done this or seen this done until this year. A few weeks ago we were at a craft fair, where my friend Annie was outside roasting chestnuts on a gas grill. She grows them about 50 miles from me in an orchard that she herself planted 16 years ago. It has been a labor of love for this is the first year she has gotten a crop big enough to sell any. A die hard fan, she brought them from Italy, and I have to say, I am completely sold! I stood there watching and helping her for about an hour just enthralled by what she was doing. This is what I learned:

First off, chestnuts are picky and will go bad rather quickly. Most often people who don't like chestnuts have had a bad one that tasted bitter and gross. Chestnuts really like damp and cold temperatures to stay good and sweet. Annie says the nuts that stay under the leaf litter in the chestnut orchard are the ones that stay good for the longest... but a fridge crisper drawer with the fruit (highest setting of moisture) is good as well and will keep them for several weeks.

Too cook them, you need to first score the skins like this:

Then put them in a wire basket and agitate them over an open flame until the skins start to come off. This happens on their own. Like popcorn. You will see sparks, hear pops, and then you will see free chestnut meats rolling around in your basket. When more are free than not, it is time to stop roasting them. (I got this wire basket from Value Village for $1.99, it is an old basket from a deep fat fryer... one trip through a hot dishwasher, and I was ready to put it over the flames.)

This is what they look like when they are done roasting:

Then comes the pealing. Be careful! They are hot. ;) The meats taste like sweet potatoes. Not what we call 'yams', but the actual yellow sweet potato. They have a nutty flavor and taste as though they are already lightly sweet and perfectly salted when roasted. I would have eaten many of them as soon as I skinned them had I not had better plans.

Here is my beautiful skinning helper with our heaping plate of chestnut meats.

Fresh Chestnuts with Fennel and Shallots

2 lbs fresh chestnuts in the hull

3 lg bulbs fennel

3 lg shallots

5 Tbs butter

salt and pepper to taste

Saute the fennel and the shallots in the butter until they start to go clear. Add the chestnut meats and agitate frequently until piping hot. Salt and pepper to taste.

It was an amazing side dish for our Thanksgiving feast!

This is what traditions are made of.

Handcrafted Holiday ~ Recycled Pennant Flag Garland

A couple months ago my Aunt Pat sent me a package. When I opened it, I was thrilled to find tons of paper scraps. Magazine pictures, calendar pieces, art postcards, and the fronts of greeting cards she liked... tucked away lovingly in plastic bags or envelopes. Just like I do.

My two aunts and my mom all have a similar love for the simple things. Paper, lace, bits of fabric... they have all collected these things, and when the collections are no longer useful to them, they ask me if I want them.

I think these are the most precious of 'vintage' collections. I feel a connection to the women in my family as I store away the scraps of sweaters, bits of lace from old pillow cases, and words I found inspirational cut out of my favorite magazines. We are kindred spirits... the few of us that create these life/love collections. And I find so much joy in getting to know the mamas that have come before me through using their collections to make beautiful things for my spaces.

This week it is a garland. I had SO much fun going through all my aunt's favorite bits of paper and cutting them into these triangles. First I made a pattern out of a piece of thick card. Then I cut out as many as I could of these tiny triangles (each one is about 2 inches long at the point) and then sewed them together on my sewing machine, one at a time.

I made it long enough for the tree, but we don't have a tree yet, so currently it is hanging down our hallway. Making another space brighter because of what was essentially garbage. I love it.

I love the look of it, and I love that I got to go through each piece that my aunt loved, and find the ones that I love. I got to know her a little bit more; sitting on my bed, listening to music, quietly cutting out tiny triangles out of the bits and pieces of paper she had collected.

I think it turned out rather beautiful. I can't wait to see it on the tree!

Don't forget to come comment on my Giveaway. Only three days left!

Handcrafted Holiday ~ How to make a wreath out of fallen tree boughs

Mother Nature has chosen to grant us with lots of windy, rainy nights lately. Big storms have been the norm so far this season. In the middle of each tempest I thought about all the tree limbs I will have to pick up the next day, and tried to think about what I could do with them instead of just dumping them into the yard waste bin. The first craft that came to mind was a wreath!

You need:

• 20lb fishing line (I recommend that everyone have some of this... for crafters, it really lasts forever and I use it all the time!)
• Floral wire (or any wire you have lying around)
• Needle nose pliers
• Boughs off an evergreen tree
• Decorations such as pine cones, holly branches, acorns, etc.
• A wreath form (optional, I didn't use one for this wreath)
  

1. Gather your materials.

2. Take the largest branches and tie them together with the wire, tightening well with the pliers.

3. Form your wreath in to a circle by taking the larger branches and putting them together in a round. Make sure that each point where you are tying the branches together is secure so when you lift the wreath, the branch doesn't slip out of the wire.

4. Flip the wreath over to secure the rest of the smaller twigs to the basic form you have made with the larger branches. You can use wire for the larger ones, and then the fishing line for the smaller. Tuck the stray twigs in and tie as many as you can to the center tightly.

5. Add smaller branches to the wreath in the places where the wreath looks bare. Tie them securely to the main form. Tuck in any stray twigs and tie with the fishing line. I like my wreaths to be very lush and full looking, so I add many smaller branches at this stage to fill in the gaps.

6. Flip over and decorate by tying the natural items to the wreath with the fishing line.

7. If you wreath doesn't hang in a circle, you can put two cross supports of wire through the center of the wreath to keep it in form. (This is where I thought that the wreath form would have been a good idea, but it looks beautiful without the form, and this way, it was free!)

Happy Buy Nothing Day!

I firmly believe that Black Friday is the worst holiday ever created. It breeds greed, consumerism, and overindulgence. I participated once back in the 90's with a friend of mine. I think I got a remote control car for Alex for $12 or something. A nice one. Made in China, by slaves or workers making $1 a day or less. It broke within a week of Christmas.

That same Black Friday was the day that someone got trampled in a Walmart somewhere on the other side of the country. That same tragedy has happened a couple times since. I have decided to pull myself out of that game for the last decade or so. I stay at home the day after Thanksgiving... make crafts and play with my kids.

I will be adding a few Buy Nothing crafts over the next few days. All of them are created from used, found, or recycled things. Stay tuned for these fun crafts. No cash required.

Happy Buy Nothing Day!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It is another stormy day, and I can feel Jack Frost when I walk outside. The days are getting as short as they ever get around here. About 6 hours. We woke just after 7 am to pitch blackness.

The long nights are giving us time for lots of crafting, story telling, and cocoa drinking. Today the family and I are making pies, roasting chestnuts and sauteing fennel for a feast at my dad's house this afternoon.

I hope you all have a beautiful holiday!

Giveaway!

In honor of my 100 (and 101st) followers, I would like to host a giveaway!

On Monday, Nov 30th, I will choose at random, some lucky winner from the comments on this post, to send a pair of beautiful (and warm!) recycled sweater hats! (Custom sizes, of course.)

99 Followers!

OMgoodness! I just realised that I have 99 followers!

When I reach 100 I will have to do something big. What should I do? A giveaway seems the most appropriate thing.

What shall it be? Bowl covers? Christmas tree ornaments? Wool sweater hats? Felt crowns? Hmmmmm...

Broken Truck, Rainy Morning

This morning, I woke at 5:30 for work and heard a storm outside. As I lay there, I wondered how we would get through this day with our tents without getting soaked. I mentally made a list of extra things to pack to stay warm and dry. I got up, took a shower, got dressed with extra layers on every surface of my person and went to make myself breakfast. Just as I was getting ready to leave for the park and ride, my phone rings. The truck has broken down on her way to pick me up. We will not be going to market today.

A bit of me was thrilled... but most of me was upset. This is the busiest market day of the year! The Sunday before Thanksgiving... everyone wants the basics we provide: Celery, onions, garlic, carrots, mushrooms, etc. They come in droves on this day each year for the staples that they will need for the celebratory meal.

The truck is broken though. Nothing much to be done. I am home, and the more I watch the storm outside the happier I am to be here. It is raging and I am glad to not be in it... as nice as it would have been to have this day at market. Each gust of the wind makes me grateful for this warm room in which I sit... fire blazing and felt in my hands.

Alex is making pancakes with maple syrup and I am working on Christmas tree ornaments for our nature tree theme this year. The pressed leaves are hung in the windows and a fire is going. The storm outside can stay there. This mama is staying home today.

Ecolovies ~ Wool Felted Sweaters!

In the last few weeks I have thought of turning wool felted sweaters into a lot of things... but I never thought of turning them into another sweater! Until this one. I got this 'Men's Large' beauty at the Value Village half off sale and was thinking this nice pattern would make some sweet hats... but when I pulled it out of the dryer, it looked an awful lot like a sweater I used to have. In fact, it was even the same size... so I put it on... and low and behold, it was just slightly big for me... and because it was a Men's, the arms were long enough! I don't know how many of you are tall ladies, but for me, that is a HUGE deal. All women's sleeves are too short. So most of my outerwear is men's small and most of my casual shirts I have at 3/4 length. If I want to get the sleeves long enough, I need to buy specialty clothes or buy at least one size too big. These sleeves touch my fingers... :) and I can pull them down over my hands like I have seen so many other mamas do.

Another thing. I have never been able to wear 100% wool without a rash or itchiness. But the felted wool doesn't cause that itchiness that the unfelted has in the past. I thought that was curious.... and would love to see other mamas try this and let me know how it works out for them!

So, in my estimation, I got the best deal I could have. I got an amazing work sweater, for $3.59 that the sleeves actually are long enough on, and when I am done with work, I have another sweater to cut up and make into adorable hats! It's a win/win!

Trip to the Olympic Game Farm

The Olympic Game Farm

That is where we went to yesterday. We drove slowly through these herds of animals that I have never even seen this closely before and they stuck their noses right inside the car for a piece of bread! It was so neat. Many of the animals are old animal actors or descendants of animal actors. Wild herds and savage beasts in movies like "Grizzly Adams" and "Homeward Bound; The Incredible Journey" retire here.

To see these animals up close was amazing. Bears waved at us, elk stuck their face in our car, a bison stuck his whole head in and got us all dirty (and few! Did he smell!). The kids didn't know what to think. Most of them were fine, but Logan was curled up in my lap with his hands over his face for the larger, more insistent critters. Poor kid was scared to death! He loved the bears though. Safely behind fences, the bears have huge roaming areas and will come to the fence for a snack. They caught bread in their mouths and then waved at us. I think that one was a retired circus bear or something because he really liked to perform.

I did have some issues with the small cages the carnivores were in. The 'performance' critters were all in these huge pens, and then the ones that didn't really perform, like the lions and cougars, were in these small pens with a tiny barn type structure that was spaced as their sleeping quarters. That part was sad, and it detracted from the whole thing for me.

Even with all of this... it was a once in a lifetime experience. And to think, it is only 3 hours away! It was a very long day... but we all enjoyed it.

A field trip to remember. For sure.

Hey kids! It's field trip day... Lets go feed some animals!

How about a Fallow Deer buck?

Or a Elk cow?

Oh yes... that is Bison slobber.

I'll fill you in more tomorrow. For now... just pictures.

Spontaneous Gratitude for a not-sick day

I know I just had one of these, but I have to have another. I have been sick. Let me rephrase, I made myself sick. Ate things I knew I could not eat, and ended up with nasty tummy stuff and a migraine for the last three days. It stunk! But tonight, I feel better. Good enough to clean, and cook and do all of those things that a mama is supposed to do. And I have never been so grateful to feel healthy in my life! It is one thing when you come down with something and you get sick, but it is a whole other thing when you eat something you know may make you sick... and then it does. Guilt wrapped up with feeling like crap. Just not a good combo. So here is my spontaneous gratitude post for this evening... and then I will be going to watch the double feature with my family.

Fun games that teach.

(I made this die by coloring each side the same color as the glass pearls. We rolled and Logan found the color and put it on the puddle of the same color.)

Good mail.

Popcorn with brewers yeast, dried basil, and sharp white cheddar.

The world's best soup for a cold and rainy day.

More crafts for Rainbow school.

Doing fun things with rainbows

All we see is this:

So we are making rainbows out of the rain. :)

For the love of Rainbow

Spontaneous Gratitude

The history of Spontaneous Gratitude.

For today:

Wool yarn from a local producer to learn new fun crafts.

More wool felt crowns.

Working on new skills with my baby.

Cinnamon bread toast, with butter.

New (completely unnecessary) technology...

That I love. ;)

Market Days and Menu Monday

Market was very wet this week. We got dumped on by our tent a couple times. I didn't get it as bad as my market partner. lol... the whole top of the tent decided to dump on her as we were breaking down. Luckily it was at the end of the day and she got to dry off on the way home. The rain made the day really long though.

It is getting harder to take pictures. Even the day time is very dark now. We have from about 8:30am until 4:30pm of sunlight... soon it will be 9am - 4pm, and then it will start turning back again. Chickens are slowing down their egg production, the heavy frost we had last week has taken out some of the crops that we usually have this time of year.

My list this week:

Carrots, Dino and Curly kale, cilantro, onions, Romanesco, onions, Delicata squash, celeriac, apples, half of a chicken, dozen eggs, a tin of Sip-T, and some wonderful fresh chestnuts!

Menu for this week:

Nature Table Fun

As you walk into our public library there is this case. It is always filled with something.

Sometimes organizations have things they want to put in there, sometimes it is little girls collections of Littlest Pet Shop dolls. Every month it is something different. I asked about signing up to put stuff in there, thinking it would be a good lesson for the kids, and they told me that I would be signing up for 2011. Seriously. So I did. I signed my kids up for two years down the road for their chance at this case.

This week, I walked in and it was empty. It was odd, considering the conversation I had had earlier with the people at the library... but I figured, what the heck, I would ask again.

Apparently the person that was supposed to fill the case this month canceled and no one had gotten around to doing it yet. So I asked at just the right time. She said the person that was supposed to do it was relieved. So this morning, the kids and I did some crafts and had a great time decorating the glass case at the library with all of our Waldorf nature table stuff. Each quarter of the case has a season.

Me being me, I couldn't just have the nature table stuff in there... it had to have books. After all, it is at a LIBRARY! lol... so I added in our seasonal favorites and a couple on a nature table too. I think it turned out pretty well.

My favorite is Winter:

Mother Nature holding a white glass heart. It just looks like a fresh start of the year to me.

More pictures here.

Cyan's turning 100!!

Today my daughter is turning 100. 100 months old that is!

We are celebrating by doing tons of crafts and drinking hot cider with cinnamon bread.

Food, Inc.

Eating is something you do each and every day. It is hard not to think about when you are going to eat, what you are going to eat, and where you are going to get it. The smallest smells can spark your mouth to salivate and your body to crave. We are so CLOSE to food... and yet, so very far away.

I watched Food Inc on Wednesday last week. There was a lot of information I already knew. I have been in this conversation for far too long to miss that feed lots are bad, and organics are good, and beyond organic is better. But listening to the conversation is absolutely fascinating! And there were bits of information that were given new light... particularly about 'big organic' that I hadn't thought of in that way. It was neat to hear a different perspective and be able to see how some people justified getting into bed with huge corporations to supply organics. I have to admit... I had a small turn of heart.

It helps that it has three of my favorite beyond organic advocates in force;

Eric Schlosser, the author of Fast Food Nation and a wonderful investigative reporter.

Micheal Pollan, my personal favorite food author and author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food.

And Joel Salitin, the owner of Polyface Farms and one of the forerunners for the Beyond Organic Movement. (He was featured in Micheal Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma.)

I highly recommend this movie. It is informative and it puts a face to so many of those places that you tend to think have had their bad business behind closed doors for far too long. Just the list of people who wouldn't talk to the reporters is pretty interesting. It makes you think even more, what do they have to hide?

A month of dates for under $100

My husband and I have very different schedules. He works from noon to midnight and I am a morning person. This causes a lot of personal time conflicts. About a year ago we decided that we needed a weekly date night, and since then, have been connecting much better. We used to go out and not think about the money. After all, I figure, even if we were doing it with no budget, it would be cheaper than marriage counseling.

In these last few months we have had to be more careful... just like everyone else.

This is my coupon file. It is the front page of my menu folder. I have figured out a way to have 4 dates a month with my husband for under $100.

#1: Plan ahead.

Pick one night a weekend that you can go out. This is harder with inconsistent schedules, but try set aside a night each week. Even if it is a different one every week. Planning ahead almost always saves money. See if you can trade babysitting with a friend who has children. You may not be able to go out every weekend, but say on one Friday evening you go out and then the next week they get to go out. Then both of your families will get the benefits of regular date nights without having to pay a babysitter.

#2: Use coupons.

Restaurant.com. I thought it was a scam at first... Honest, I did. Who gives out $25 coupons for $1-$10? But it isn't. We have used them a bunch of times. (Today's code is ENTREE for $2 coupons.) Make sure you read the fine print! There are limitations. You have to spend a certain amount to get the discount, but if you are careful, you can get a really nice dinner at a new restaurant for less than $20.

Discount movie tickets from Costco. For just $15 we can get into an evening movie. And don't forget to use your cinemas rewards card! We use the Regal Club Card and have gotten free tickets, free small popcorn's and free small sodas (both of which you can upgrade to a large for a dollar, plenty to share). And that cuts the cost off even more!

We don't do both of these things in the same night. We go to the movies one week and eat out the next. For two movies and two dinners out this month it has cost us $83.22 over the last 4 weeks. That is with 18% tip on both dinners, and popcorn and soda for both movies. (Last night we saw Couple's Retreat. Not great, but funny.)

And #3: Do it anyway.

Sometimes our babysitting doesn't work out. Sometimes we don't have the cash for even the cheap dates. But we try to keep our date night sacred... like a pact to make sure that we stay connected.

Dinner I made my husband on a 'date night'. Grass fed beef roast cooked Med Rare, sauteed shallots with mushrooms and garlic. Buttered cabbage with dill. Eat your heart out Applebee's.

Any date night tips out there? What do you guys do to keep the romance in these hard money times?

Market Days and thinking Christmas

My list this week:

Shallots, Chanterelle mushrooms, red and Chopra onions, carrots, Choiggia and red beets, russet potatoes, arugula, Romanesco, cauliflower, rutabaga, celery, fennel, Italian kale, cilantro, dill, leeks, Delicata squash, garlic, beautiful apples, celeriac, and one of the biggest cabbages I have ever seen.

I love the market. This year we are a tight bunch. Things have been hard in the sales dept and so we have all started coming together more and more. I love the community that we have created.

This week was hard for me because of the rudeness of people who are not in that community. One woman poured her coffee out in our stand. I don't know what she was thinking, but for the entire day, we had coffee under our table where we kept our purses. I would like to say she didn't do it on purpose, but I know she knew, and she didn't say 'I'm sorry' either.... so it makes me doubt it. And another lady started PEELING the shallots... down to the meat... and then putting them back in the basket. I spent the better part of the morning with snide comments in my head and a smile on my face. It was a hard day that way. But it is over now, and I have so many things to be thankful for!

Eggs from Quilceda's Farm again. As if to know your chickens were well taken care of in the production of your eggs was not enough, Terry occasionally puts together a set of eggs just for my kids... filled with brown, white, and green.

The idea that you can be close to your food is not so very hard. I have at least a short conversation with Terry each week about his animals, or what I cooked with his products, or which one of my recipes he liked. You can't have that same type of conversation with Safeway.... and even if you did, they wouldn't care what you thought and certainly wouldn't set aside colored eggs for your children. It is a whole other level of being connected to the process of your food.

In other news: Again I am thinking about Christmas. We are going to try all local or handmade and we are going for under $500. Sounds hard? Maybe... we will see. This week I did a little test run in the 'local' category and found some real gems!

The lady that made this mitt is a favorite vendor of mine. Theresa from Texture Clothing. She is so stinking sweet! I traded some of my pantry canned goods for these babies and I totally adore them! I will have to see if I can get more. Also, my best friend SWEARS by her skits. They have been a favorite of hers for over a year now. All of Theresa's stuff is made as gently on the earth as possible and she is the queen of finding new ways to reduce waste. Not to mention an awesome personality that is great to talk too.

And here is a new favorite vendor... Sip-T! This super cool mama has three girls ranging from 4 yrs old to late high-school... she unschools, is vegan, and makes KILLER tea! We traded veggies for these two, and I will be back for more. Wonderful tea! Her girls are at the market with her each week, and the olders are the best sales people ever. One bubbling over with excitement to tell you about the tea, and the other hanging back and telling you her experience in a quiet, reserved manor. A perfect mix if you ask me. A mood for everyone. They are all very knowledgeable and even their tea packages have personality.

Last year I gave soap in my Christmas gift baskets... but this year, I am thinking TEA! (Link to the best soap ever!)

In the farm news, they are doing a winter CSA this year. In our climate, that is a rare thing. I am excited to say that most of the things up in my list this week will continue to be available through Christmas and on until MAY! If you live between Vancouver and Seattle, please check them out.

The menu for this week is very inspired by what I got from Market. We are getting into the tight time of year moneywize. Heating bills going up, repairs needing to be done, and the coming of Father Christmas... yep. It's almost Winter.

I made this new template in Word. The clip art is also from there. I tried to convert it to a PDF but am not quite ready for that. If you want the file, email me and I will send it to you. :) Have a great Monday everyone!

Ecolovies ~ Recycled Art Candle Holders

Many people ask me what we do with all of the children's art. Aside from their portfolios, and the recycle bin, we like to turn art into other art!

I saw a picture on Flickr of candle holders made from card stock cut decoratively with a hole punch. The lady had several arranged in a round tray and they were just beautiful! As I was going through their art, and my recycle pile was getting larger and larger, I decided to pull out some of the art for this project.

What you need:

Heavy Paper/Children's Art

Different sized hole punches

Decorative Scissors

Mason jars

Tea light candles

(Shaped punches work too, but if you are using watercolor paper, as we were, know that it is hard to do. It may get discouraging for littles.)

1. Measure your mason jar with a ruler (mine were 2 and 5 inches tall) and make a line on the back of your child's artwork.

2. Cut the paper at that spot with decorative scissors.

3. Get crazy with the hole punches. Put punches in the top, bottom, make them look like lace by punching in a pattern across both top AND bottom.

Have fun with it!

4. Tape your paper, art side out, around the mason jar. (You could also use jute or hemp tie... perhaps with some of the punch outs dangling from it on a bow?)

5. Add a candle and enjoy!

Arn't they pretty?

Unbelieveably cool!

Just a few days ago I told you guys about my score on Cyan's Born shoes... and night before last, I was going out to dinner for my weekly date with The Man, and I saw this cute little consignment shop. As I looked around I glanced at the shoes and couldn't believe what I saw. A pair of Born clogs, very similar to Cyan's, for ME!!! Two totally different shops, totally different trips. Mine are not quite as perky, and the morning I took these pictures I went to the Apple Guys place so they surely not as clean... but wow. Two pairs of great shoes for me and my girly for under $15. *Glee*

It is the thing of stories in the faith of thrifting. "If you need it, it will come."

(BTW, it is really hard to take a picture of the side of a shoe you are wearing. I'm just sayin'.)

The Apple Guy

Our apple tree appointment was yesterday. Bob Hartman himself was our guide for the morning. He has been breeding/growing trees for 37 yrs! He was AMAZING! I swear, he has forgotten more about apples than I will ever know.

We walked about his place and he would pull apples right off the little trees that we were considering buying and cut them for us to taste. He gave me a pen and a roll of tape to mark the ones that I liked so I would know them when I was ordering (pic above). He talked about varieties that are good for organic gardening (not susceptible to Apple Scab) and then what flavor and storage hardiness we wanted.

When I told him I wanted a smaller type of tree he started to throw out numbers... Most of which I had no clue what they meant; P22, B9, M111... huh? I sat there quietly, until he realised that he had lost me and he said that those are the root stock that the trees are grafted onto to make them smaller. He asked me what sized tree I was looking for, and I said one I could reach most of, but I didn't mind if I had to use a ladder for some. And he said the root stock I wanted was the B9 or Mark... which grow trees about 40% of normal size. I just nodded and asked if that was under 9ft tall... and he said yes with this twinkle in his eye. That twinkle came back when we were tasting the apples too. He would always taste them with us... he said it was "quality control"... but I think he just really loves apples.

It was an amazing apple education. My head is still full. One thing that really shocked me though was that he doesn't preserve his apples. He just eats them raw. I asked him which ones were best for apple pie filling and apple sauce... he said that he thought it was the tart ones (which I already knew, I was fishing for a specific variety) but he wasn't sure because he never makes the stuff! An apple guy who doesn't make apple pie. I thought for a moment about asking him to ask his wife. LOL!

I ended up picking three 3yr old trees... but two are grafted to have two different varieties on them. I got one Gravenstein, one Keepsake with a Liberty graft, and one Florina with a graft of Sweet Sixteen. I specifically picked the second double tree because the Sweet Sixteen is an early apple that is Bob's favorite...

"But you didn't taste that one." he says

"I trust your judgement... you are the apple god." I reply.

And again, he got that twinkle in his eye.

The best part of the whole trip was him telling me that since I bought three trees I got a fourth for free!!! I decided that I had enough apples and picked my favorite from my parents old yard: Italian Plum. I have NO idea where I am going to put that baby, but I am crazy excited about it. It was a heavenly homestead day. :)

My Household Notebook

I am a lover of paper. Paper and water. I waste both continuously (recycling constantly, of course). I love a good book, and a long bath. I love hot showers and three ring binders filled with paper that I have printed out. It is one of my many flaws. I still haven't gotten use to this information age for keeping all of the ideas I love on the compact glory of the computer. I am an avid user of binders. And I am not sure I will ever change... I honestly prefer paper to screen.

This is a post about our household notebook. It holds so much of our lives in it's three hole punched pages. I have seen many tutorials of what to put in a household notebook, or how to print the pages just so... but the ones that always helped me the most were the tried and true posts about what people use every day and what is in their notebooks. So I am going to try to give you a description of mine.

There are 9 sections in my household notebook.

1. First up is the front pocket and the pencil case. In the pencil case I have tons of page tabs, highlighters and pens. Along with a ruler and a pair of scissors.

2. The second section is my calendar. It was drafted by my best friend and this is her second year producing it for all of us homeschooling mamas. First there are the month in view pages:

I use the page tabs for events that haven't happened yet, and then once they have, I mark them down in pen on the actual calendar pages. I want an accurate representation of what we have done, and this is it. If the event was rescheduled, I can move the tab without a problem. If we didn't do the event or class, I remove the page tab.

Next is the week in view pages. This is where I keep all of our homeschooling records. What we are learning, the pages of what book were finished, and what field trips we took. This is always full. I consider most everything schooling, so it all goes in there. If you were to see a close up of this weeks list you would see "Preserving Apple Chips" and "Writing in Journal" right along with "Math U See Lesson 17D"

The next three sections are the chore sections. I have one, The Man has one, and the kids have one. We all have printable chore charts.

3. My chores. For a long time I have gotten mine from Motivated Moms. I print mine out on the 29th of each month and they get three hole punched and put in the binder. (If you wanted to try out Motivated Moms, right now is a good time... the last of the years chore calendar is always at a crazy discount... like $3.)

4. The Man's chores are broken up into days he works, and days he doesn't. Of course, on the days he works they are very limited. He always has to put away the clean laundry and dishes. The other days I get to add on to the 'honey do' list. But I try to be reasonable. ;)

5. The kids chores are the last section. I have the master list and they get a half page print out of their daily chores that they get to mark off. I print these out the same time I print mine each month.

6. The next section is meal planning. Each week I plan our meals from the food I get from the market on the weekend. Then we make a shopping run for everything else on Mondays. I have my menu templates all printed out and three hole punched in this section (I print 4 or 5 each month with my chore charts).

I also keep all of our old menus and menu ideas behind the new templates.

7. This section is for dr visits and vets visits. I keep all of our medical records (including pets) in this section. Once a year I clean it out and separate the recycling and the records storage. This section has been in use a lot as we have just moved and found new doctors and vets. It was so nice to be able to look back on it and see when Taio had his last Rabies shot, or we had our last dental cleaning.

8. This section is the car and house repairs. Mostly this is a page with a pocket for receipts, but I do have a page with dates for oil changes, furnace cleaning, etc.

9. The last section in my notebook is my preservation notebook. This has become really important. Mostly for the planning of the next year. I made a table and printed out 5 pages that are set up like this:

At a glance I can tell what I stored, how much yield there was per box/crate/pound and when we ran out.

At the back of this section there are a bunch of page protected sheets with my favorite preservation recipes. Some of these are new and I printed them off this year:

If I do take a file from the Internet, then I try to make sure I can find the source again by putting the name of the blog, or website at the top of the recipe. Of course, this being paper, I can pull it out and write on it (above) to adjust the recipe to my taste. This blueberry jam recipe turned into one of my very favorites of the year and I am excited that I can find both kinds again and again.

That's it. It feels very strange to put this all down on paper... like my OCD tendencies are all out there. lol... However, I really do use it every day. There are other sections (smaller parts of the 9 main sections) that are in themselves very helpful for me that I will share at a later time, but this is the bulk of it.

Change is in the air...

Spring and Fall seem like good cleaning and cleansing times. It seems that decluttering and getting unwanted stuff out of the house is doubled with the idea of actually being in the house for the next 6 months. It is funny how coming back to these seasonal rituals helps with the acceptance of the passing of time. Currently, I have a large pile of things that I have collected from around the house that I am going to go through and put in it's place. Mostly papers that need to be sorted, bills that need to be filed, and other things like that.

One thing I am doing differently this year is the clothing. I am going to limit everyone to 10 - 12 outfits each. This is easy for the boys. The idea came from The Man actually doing that already! But for Cyan and I, it won't be so easy.

Does anyone have any ideas on accessories that make our outfits still exciting and fun, while having a very simple wardrobe?

Market days

My list is deceptively short this week because of how many things I couldn't bring home due to us selling out! The market was crazy yesterday. The last few days have been cold, but BEAUTIFUL. Sunny and brisk, people were out in force and wanting veggies. Many farmers have left the market now, and so the few that are there (us included) are slammed all day long. I don't think we stopped moving from the minute we got there at 7:30am, until we got back in the truck around 4:30pm. It was crazy... but good business. It was one of the best days we have had yet this year.

My list: Carrots, golden beets, celery, cilantro, dill, cabbage, leeks, cauliflower (beautiful crop!), shallots, tiny radishes, and some decorative gourds. Trade: Russet potatoes for baking, apples and pears, and then my wonderful eggs.

Here is the menu for this week:

Halloween

The warrior.

The princess.

The dragon.

Of babies, bread, and bruises

I unwrapped Logan's foot last night. It seems so much better. Arnica cream and the bandage are helping a whole lot. It is so hard to judge hurts with tough toddlers. When he first jumped off the couch and landed wrong on his foot he seemed broken. Couldn't walk. Wanting only to be held and read to for about an hour. I called the nurse at our Dr office (which is now 40 minutes away) and she said to give it until 3pm if he could walk on it. He could, he just didn't want to. She said to wait and then go into Urgent Care instead of the ER. So I wrapped it, read to my baby, and waited. By the time 3pm rolled around he was running after balls in the backyard. No kidding. I thought that I had overreacted. And then I unwrapped it.

This looks good. Oh SO good compared to three days ago. And you can only see the side... the bruise goes all the way down the bottom of his foot and half way across the top in, what is now, a big green/yellow stain. That night when I took the bandage off, it was so swollen that his big toe was pointing down slightly. Goodness that boy is tough. It hurts me just to look at it... and he was running within hours. Amazing! I still have put the bandage and arnica cream on it every single day and will until the bruise is gone. But it seems to be healing nicely now.

This is his current perch. He sits on the counter while I cook. This loaf of bread is from Great Harvest Bread Co next to Trader Joe's. It is a feta and spinach loaf... he calls it "pizza bread". He has been snacking on bread for about 5 days now. Doesn't really eat much else. Good thing I get good bread.

He is so spirited. My baby. Yells all the time. I think that he has two talkative older siblings and it makes it hard to know when he will get cut off, or pushed out of the way for something more important... so he yells. It always makes for an interesting day.