Posted in Birding, Homemaking, Learning, Locally grown, Moderation and Economy, Working the earth/harvesting its bounty on Mar 28th, 2010
We got chickens!!
After months of scouring Craigslist, pricing materials at the ReBuilding Center and researching plans (not to mention years of wishing, dreaming)… we finally found a used coop that met our super tight budget. (A coat of pretty paint, and the sturdy coop will look quite nice in the back corner of our [...]
Posted in Building Community, Homemaking, Learning, Locally grown, Moderation and Economy, Uncategorized, Working the earth/harvesting its bounty on Mar 18th, 2010
Yesterday afternoon, with my son on my back, the girls and I potted up the first of our tomato seedlings – all 51 of them. (The one above is a “Black Krim”, a favorite of ours for salads.) Another 26 little tomato-lets (started a week later) will be potted up this weekend, time allowing.
(Above: Our [...]
Posted in From my kitchen, Learning, Locally grown, Moderation and Economy on Mar 17th, 2010
Today we finished Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food. The girls and I listened to it on unabridged book CD over the course of several afternoons of making dinner. I had really enjoyed The Omnivore’s Dilemma and The Botany of Desire, but somehow missed this one until now.
Much of what he writes really melds with [...]
Posted in From my kitchen, Homemaking, Learning on Mar 8th, 2010
Monday is baking day.
We’re enjoying the Monday tradition of baking homemade bread. Our favorite “fancy” recipe is Challah – the dough is so kid-friendly, the results wow everybody, and nothing goes better with homemade jam.
It looks like the sun is starting to come out, so I think we’ll go plant some potatoes (along with the [...]
Posted in Learning, Our home, Playing/ Free Exploration, Working the earth/harvesting its bounty on Mar 1st, 2010
We scrapped all other plans for today,
and simply played in in the dirt.
As Firecracker said, “There’s nothin’ more natural than gettin’ dirty.”
Somehow, in the midst of playing “dirt fairies”, “cruel dirt queen who makes her workers dig all day”, “climb dirt mountain”, “search for worms and buried treasure”, and “fill and empty buckets of [...]
Posted in Books and Reading, Changing Seasons, Learning, Working the earth/harvesting its bounty on Feb 24th, 2010
The girls are listening to Daddy read The Mousehunter at bedtime, but our daytime book selection reflects the unusually sunny, warm weather that has us all thinking of anything except the tail-end of winter.
We just finished listening to Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Which is why we’re starting an asparagus bed - Little Hen was fascinated by [...]
Posted in Books and Reading, Learning, Playing/ Free Exploration on Feb 9th, 2010
This photo pretty well sums up our morning literary activities of late.
First thing this morning, we had to get a bit pot of chili blanco going on the stove, and batch of brownies in the oven, since it’s our turn to bring dinner to our homegroup. While Firecracker helped measure out the spices and crush [...]
Posted in Books and Reading, Learning on Dec 13th, 2009
A lovely, chilly December Saturday – the icy weather kept us in the house, delving once again into the world of Greek Mythology. We made mugs of hot mint tea, and listened to Daddy read from our current Percy Jackson book.
It’s wonderful to share a passion with your children – there’s not much we [...]
Posted in Books and Reading, Knitting, Learning on Nov 15th, 2009
We are feeling a bit like hermits, cooped-up in the house for days and days – the little ones are still wrestling with sickness, and we had to miss church again this week. Little Hen, still healthy, escaped to Grandma’s house for the weekend (a BIG thank-you to Grandma for inviting her up!).
After homemade pecan-chocolate [...]
Look who’s knitting on two needles!
We are all recovering from a pretty awful family-wide bug, so the past two days we’ve taken things very easy. Sunday afternoon, Little Hen said she wanted to get some knitting done and set to work on her first real “project” - a little wool cape for her beloved Waldorf [...]