Exploring Life In The Grit Of The Earth
Posted in Mothering, Organic Gardening, building our home on Jul 31st, 2010
365 eggs plums peaches tomatoes green beans eggplant cucumber squash (yellow and zucchini) mint black berries red raspberries blue berries And I put up 5 quarts of ‘mock’ apple pie filling, 5 pints of cucumber relish and 4 quarts of green beans. My counter tops are covered with squash and cukes! I need to do [...]
Posted in Chickens/Ducks, Organic Gardening on Jul 19th, 2010
Posted in Mothering, Organic Gardening on Jul 8th, 2010
Berries, herbs, and fruit (YUMM!) And Smiles!
Posted in Organic Gardening on Jul 1st, 2010
As a part of my plan to try to simplify things in my life, I am no longer weighing out all of my harvest…. Though the anal side of me really wants to know exactly how many pounds of summer squash I picked, and how many ounces of herbs, it’s just not a priority. So, [...]
Posted in General, Mothering, Organic Gardening, Sewing, building our home on Jun 21st, 2010
We’ve had a great spring here on our land. Things have felt really productive. But, I have to tell you, we are beat! I wake up in the morning, jump out of bed and get going. Laundry, taking care of the animals, garden care, kitchen clean up, etc. all comes before breakfast. Most nights I [...]
Posted in Home Schooling, Sewing, building our home on May 31st, 2010
The 2 year old roof. Spots are filling in pretty well. I think I’ll give it one more year and then plant a few more things if needed. I absolutely love all the color on the roof right now. It’s like a patchwork quilt! And the yard is coming along, too. After 2 years of [...]
I love, love, love this fabric and how Kaia’s new dress turned out! It’s a really simple pattern by Heather Ross, and it was also my first time working with elastic thread (fun!). The pattern is actually for adults so I altered it for Kaia. Isn’t it sweet! I’m definitely going to be making more, [...]
Posted in Do It Yourself, Mothering, Sewing on Apr 13th, 2010
I’ve been wanting to make Leif this doll for a while now. He’s so into taking things apart, pushing buttons, pulling levers…. I thought he’d enjoy it. It was a lot of fun to make! If you want to make one for your favorite little explorer you’ll need: fabric for the body (I used an [...]
Last week, my father-in-law passed on boxes of sewing goodies from his mother’s stash (so, that would be Kaia and Leif’s great-grandmother)! She was an avid seamstress and had some fabulous stuff! Look at this: There were 4 boxes of lace like this! This is just begging to be the hem of a frilly dress [...]
Posted in Chickens/Ducks, Sustainable Living on Apr 4th, 2010
Our ladies have had a great egg laying month!! Last month we averaged about a dozen a day (from 22 chickens), and the numbers just keep increasing. I’ve put a fence around the garden so that I can let the chickens out of their gated area to free range in the afternoons without them getting [...]
Posted in Chickens/Ducks, Home Schooling, Knitting on Mar 30th, 2010
Let’s start our morning with some daredevil antics! Don’t see anything wrong with this? Let’s look again: Then off to a sweet farm tour where we enjoyed some fabulous home made jellies and ice cream, and I scored an angora fleece from this guy: Then we spent the rest of our day enjoying the beautiful [...]
Posted in Organic Gardening on Mar 11th, 2010
YAY!! I’m so excited!! I can’t wait to have fresh food from the garden. This past weekend, we set up a straw bale cold frame to start our seeds in and seeded kale, lettuce, cabbage, and parsley! We are using a pane from a glass door as the top. The greenhouse in our [...]
Posted in Do It Yourself on Mar 2nd, 2010
Kaia has been waiting, and waiting, for this project to happen. She picked out her fabric last month, but we had trouble getting the fins. They finally arrived today, so I had to get right on it! Behold – Mermaid Kaia! This was a fairly simple project to do. We got the swim fins from [...]
Posted in Sustainable Living on Feb 28th, 2010
We’ve finally got it all figured out and are happy to announce that we have some of our land for sale! We would love to have some other families out here with us!! Here’s the schpiel: 10+ wooded acres for sale! We are a homeschooling family of four (6 year old daughter, 1 year old [...]
Posted in Beekeeping, General, Mothering on Feb 22nd, 2010
Mmmmmm, the smell of warm beeswax is so yummy!! Leif’s view of his new mobile in the warm afternoon sunshine
Here it is! My first official sewing project from my lessons! I’m calling her the “You are a Sassy, Sexy Housewife-Mama, and you Know It!” apron. And Look! It’s reversible! Isn’t it cute??!! If you want your own, you can get the pattern from Pretty-Ditty. While I wasn’t working on the apron, I made some [...]
Well, I think the internet might be back up… maybe… it’s slow and keeps going up and down, but maybe they are fixing it. We’ve been snowed in, without phone and internet since the last snow 5 days ago. Let me tell you… After all the snow and indoor time in the past month, I’m [...]
Posted in Holistic Medicine, Mothering on Jan 29th, 2010
I finally did it! I’m taking sewing lessons! I’ve been wanting to learn how to sew for a long time now. I can do a little on the sewing machine, but I’ve wanted to learn from a professional. Well, as luck would have it, I won a raffle for 7 sewing lessons from a professional [...]
Posted in Chickens/Ducks, Home Schooling, Mothering, Organic Gardening on Jan 16th, 2010
Finally, it’s gotten above 35 degrees!! The snow has been on the ground for a month and it seems like every morning I’ll wake up to a little more! The past few days it’s gotten up into the 50′s and it’s been wonderful! The chickens are having a field day taking dirt baths and stretching [...]
Well, my intention was to knit myself a new hat… one that completely covers my ears, because I can’t seem to get one that keeps my head and ears nice and warm. I found a great pattern and saw the finished hat in my local yarn store. But the pattern didn’t have a gauge (how [...]
Posted in Do It Yourself, Mothering, Pets on Dec 26th, 2009
Kaia and I crafted felt doughnuts, stuffed with polyfill and catnip, for some of our favorite feline friends! There are all different icing and sprinkle types, for your cat’s specific tastes. We gave the first one, a raspberry icing with chocolate sprinkles, to our cats as an early gift. As you can see, they are [...]
Posted in Knitting on Dec 23rd, 2009
I’ve put up my pattern for Leif’s Mossy Mittens And if you are looking for a fast gift, here is my pattern for Paper Clip Ice Skates
Posted in Do It Yourself, Knitting, Mothering on Dec 21st, 2009
We have had such a wonderful last few days. Being snowed in has been a great adventure for all of us. The power was out for 24 hours, but we enjoyed the peace it brought and we kept ourselves fully entertained! There was tent building: There was lots of snow play (sledding, snow men, snow [...]
Posted in Mothering, Sustainable Living on Dec 18th, 2009
Well, it looks like we will be hanging out on our land for a few days, possibly weeks We are getting more snow that I’ve seen in 16 years! It’s a beautiful winter wonderland here, and Kaia is having the time of her life! She’s been in and out all day, coming in just [...]
Posted in Do It Yourself, Home Schooling on Dec 15th, 2009
We’ve had the crafting spirit in our home lately! This weekend Kaia and I made some santa ornaments after seeing them at Write-It-Down. We just happened to have everything we needed and couldn’t resist the cute little guys. Then we had a few friends over for more crafting. We made beeswax ornaments with beeswax from [...]
Posted in Holistic Medicine, Mothering on Dec 8th, 2009
OK, I’ve been hearing about this board game for a while now and, I have to admit, I have been very resistant to it! I’m not totally sure why, but I think it has to do with the feeling that if I’m a good herbalist, I shouldn’t need the aid of a board game to [...]
Posted in Do It Yourself, Home Schooling on Dec 5th, 2009
Creating our holiday cards…
Posted in Do It Yourself, Knitting, Mothering on Dec 4th, 2009
Here it is! Kaia’s Flower Fairy/Pearly Mermaid/ Blingy Princess skirt! It is a holiday gift for her and I can’t wait to give it to her! I’ve published the pattern, for free (yay!) in the links at the top of my blog! Enjoy!!
Posted in Do It Yourself, Home Schooling on Nov 10th, 2009
I have great memories of my elementary school art class. The room was dark and and crowded, but our teacher always had the greatest projects for us. One of my favorites was linoleum print making. You trace a picture onto a linoleum block, carve it out, roll paint onto it and press it onto paper, [...]
That’s the only way I can describe the way I felt this weekend at my first fiber festival, the Southeastern Animal and Fiber Festival It was sensory overload as I walked through the huge arena full of rainbows of yarn, roving, fleece, and knitted garments. I had to touch everything and heard others moan and [...]