Exploring Life In The Grit Of The Earth
Posted in Do It Yourself, Sewing on Jan 19th, 2012
From the moment my daughter saw this in a magazine months ago, she has been begging me to make one for her. So, this morning, since we have been working on types of triangles and degrees of angles, I thought we’d work it into todays lessons. I planned on making a tutorial for you all, [...]
Posted in Do It Yourself, Knitting, Mothering, Sewing on Dec 30th, 2011
What beautiful holiday celebrations we have had this year! I am so grateful for the time that I have been able to spend with my friends and family. We’ve spent many days traveling to others houses to participate in their revelry and had a wonderful time! At our own home, we had a small Winter [...]
Posted in Holistic Medicine on Dec 18th, 2011
This video was passed along to me today and I thought it was a great explanation of why the hunter/gatherer diet feeds our bodies in such a healthy way. I’ve been eating this way for a little over three months now and I feel fabulous. My changes have not been as dramatic as the woman [...]
Posted in Home Schooling, Mothering, Sewing on Dec 6th, 2011
Kaia has been begging me for sewing lessons lately. She’s done a simple square purse on my machine before, but this time she decided to do something with a real pattern. She chose a fabulous owl pillow. I had to stop my hands from taking over and really let her do it all. I gave [...]
Posted in Do It Yourself, Home Schooling, Mothering on Nov 23rd, 2011
Want a quick way to highlight your little one’s masterpiece? How about sewing a lace frame around it? Or, sew the frame on the paper first to encourage them to create. Kaia’s Poem, FALL, introchaic bimeter And Leif’s “blue train on blue train tracks in a tunnel”
Posted in General, Holistic Medicine, Mothering on Nov 1st, 2011
Two months ago, I took the huge step of clearing my house of all grains, legumes, processed sugars, and processed/prepackaged foods. From now on, my family and I were going to eat only meats (including fish, fowl, and eggs), veggies, fruits, nuts, seeds, healthy oils, herbs and spices. We were going Paleo. For most Americans, [...]
Posted in Do It Yourself on Oct 23rd, 2011
I couldn’t help myself! I had to make one of my own! It is so much fun!! Should I do a tutorial for you?
Posted in Do It Yourself, Mothering on Oct 22nd, 2011
When Kaia and I were at the conference this past weekend, we both entered a raffle for various fun prizes. Kaia has a hard time with raffles because she gets herself very worked up about winning. So, she was pretty devastated when she didn’t win the wire tree that she’d hoped for. And it didn’t [...]
I can’t tell you how excited I am about my newest knit!! I love drinking out of a quart mason jar, but I always worry about dropping it. So, I’ve made myself a jar ‘cozy’. The pattern came from ravelry. I’ve had a number of people approach me about it and some even ask me [...]
Posted in Holistic Medicine, Mothering on Oct 18th, 2011
I spent this last weekend with Kaia at the Southeast Women’s Herb Conference. And what a wonderful weekend it was!! Though the wind threatened to blow our tent away a few times, Kaia came through her first conference with a big smile on her face and asked to go again next year. She went [...]
Posted in Home Schooling, Knitting, Mothering on Oct 6th, 2011
I’ve been seriously slack in posting here. That’s because I’ve not been slack in the rest of my life. We are working hard in homeschool, playing hard in the beautiful fall weather, reading great books, picking apples, eating well, and enjoying life! That’s how it should be, right?! I have a feeling new posts will [...]
Here it is! My first quilt!! I’m so excited! And I love how it turned out! We spent much of the afternoon playing I-Spy, building forts, and snuggling under it. Kaia really wants to keep it on her bed, but I think it will be a while before I want to hide it away in [...]
Posted in Do It Yourself, Mothering on Aug 13th, 2011
I brought in a little bit of money last month with some herb sales. So, I bought myself a fancy, new ice cream maker. I’ve never had one and boy, have I been missing out!!! So far, we’ve tried mint chip, peach yogurt, and strawberry. Leif waits patiently as the ice cream maker finishing churning…
Posted in Sewing on Aug 13th, 2011
This will be my first quilt. I can’t wait to see it all put together. It’s called an “I Spy” quilt:
Posted in Do It Yourself, Mothering on Jul 22nd, 2011
Somehow, I’ve ended up with a bag full of extra garden seeds. Many are years old and some are just varieties that I didn’t care for and don’t plan on using again. So, I thought I’d use some up in a craft. Here’s what you need: Seeds Pumpkin and squashes are best, but you can [...]
Posted in Sustainable Living on Jul 19th, 2011
Our kitchen is full of ripe peaches and blueberries, and what better way to dispose of those nasty critters, than to eat them… in pastries and jam!!! I started off by canning up some peaches and blueberries and thought I’d throw in some crystallized ginger for a little punch. PEACH – BLUEBERRY – GINGER JAM [...]
Posted in General, Organic Gardening on Jun 26th, 2011
We have no problems with vampires around here! Plumpest harvest ever! Local garlic planted with lots of rabbit poop. What’s your favorite garlic recipe?
Posted in Organic Gardening, Sustainable Living on Jun 16th, 2011
Devoured before the dew dried!
Posted in Do It Yourself, Mothering, Sewing on Jun 12th, 2011
Kaia and Leif LOVE playing in tents, so when I saw this project, a little A-Frame play tent, I knew we had to do it! It was so simple, we were able to make both kids their own tent in less than an hour! Kaia made the measurements while Toby drilled the holes. Then I [...]
Posted in Organic Gardening on Apr 24th, 2011
For the last few years, I’ve been letting my fruit trees and berry bushes grow as they please, not doing much maintenance other than pruning. But most of them have been in the ground for 3+ years now and are starting to produce, so I wanted to follow a better care plan to ensure a [...]
Posted in Chickens/Ducks, Knitting, Mothering, Pets, Sewing on Dec 28th, 2010
It was almost exactly this time last year that we had the big snow of ’09 and got snowed in for a week. Well, we are snowed in again and actually have been since Christmas. We’ve played in tents, made snow cream, baked, gone sledding, read, and just relaxed. The duck surprised us on Christmas [...]
Posted in Sewing on Dec 28th, 2010
I was really excited when Ikatbag began her Pocket series. Being fairly new to sewing, I tend to go for patterns with a simple pocket. But her series (with 25 posts!) covered all kinds of pockets, and how to create them, in very easy to understand steps. If you are looking for a great pocket [...]
Posted in Do It Yourself, Knitting, Mothering on Dec 21st, 2010
We had a lovely first day of winter here. We celebrated by going to see a play, opening gifts, and having friends over for a feast. So glad the days are lengthening again! Kaia’s favorite gift this year has to be her skates. She can’t wait to get to the skating rink to give them [...]
I love these little patterns from Cheezombie! They are completely adorable and quick to knit up. Below are Sheepy and Wooly. Two of Leif’s sweet new furry friends. He loves them. Is he a punk rocker? A Roman Gladiator? A rooster? (yes, that is a balloon he is biting!!)
Posted in Home Schooling, Knitting, Mothering on Nov 11th, 2010
My posting has been fairly sporadic, I know. But life is full and I don’t have much time to spend blogging. So, here are some pictures to catch you up on our ‘doings’. Hope you are all doing wonderfully and enjoying fall! This was a really fun lesson. Kaia asked to do this over again [...]
Posted in Holistic Medicine on Oct 29th, 2010
Earlier this month, I was asked if I would like to review a newly published herbal on my blog. “Sure” I said, “sounds like fun”. Though I have to admit that part of me was apprehensive to spend my sparse free time looking through yet another herbal journal. I have a gazillion of them at [...]
Posted in Do It Yourself, General, Organic Gardening on Oct 12th, 2010
Well, the harvest is complete and most of the veggies have been canned or frozen for the winter. The pantry looks pretty good and we have lots of soups to savor when it’s cold and bitter outside! But, we also have many pounds of winter squash and sweet potatoes strewn about on the floor (we [...]
I finished Leif’s vest yesterday and I love how it turned out! The color is perfect for fall…. it reminds me of gold (hence the title)! It was such a quick knit I may just have to make more!!
Posted in Do It Yourself, Knitting, Mothering on Sep 26th, 2010
Okay, well only one mouse was away … Kaia went to her Nana’s house for a few days. But even with the other little mousey around, this ended up being the weekend of getting stuff done! Maybe it’s the energy of fall making me want to put my house in order. Or maybe I’m just [...]
Posted in Do It Yourself, General on Sep 19th, 2010
Every year around this time we have a bonfire to celebrate the coming of Fall and Toby’s B-day. But this year, we are also celebrating Kaia’s speedy recovery from the snake bite, and Toby’s new job! We have a lot to be thankful for. When I saw this post a few months ago on painting [...]