back at it in 2015

Just a month in and 2015 is off to a rollicking good start.  We rang in the new year with family-reunion-a-polooza!

It was pretty awesome to get about 2/3 of the family together under one roof for a wee stretch of time.  Awesome, and crazy, and kid fabulous!  9 cousins! Thankfully the weather was mild so nobody froze too bad and the kids were able to range outside for most of the time, where they soldiered on sledding until the very last of the snow melted.  Army-sized meals were prepared, and the decibel level in the house was equivalent to a rock concert at any given time. 

About a month before this insanity all went down I broke down in my own little moment of crazy and brought this home:

Actually, that's about three times the amount of dog I brought home in December.  Puppies grow at an even more exponential rate than children. Artemis "Aurora-Rapunzel-Cinderella."  She has pretty much won us all over heart and soul.  Every time we turn around she is just sitting there with those eyes full of unconditional love seeming to say, "I'm your biggest fan, I'll follow you until you love me, or feed me scraps of moose meat."

As things slowed down & got very chilly outside towards the end of January and our house seemed strangely quiet (for the first time ever maybe) the kids and I have  been reading lots of books.  We have a cook & book theme going on and they are totally diggin' it.  This week we read

The kids baked the apple pie recipe from it (they did the majority of mixing and chopping themselves) and were quite delighted with the result.

Other than that we are just crafting, and garden dreaming and doing some nesting in this last little stretch of winter time.

butterfly magic

We've been in for a bit of a treat this summer with the two caterpillar friends we took in.  The first one (sorry I didn't take a picture of the caterpillar) created this magnificent chrysalis:

I didn't know treasures like this even existed in nature! After a couple of weeks (sorry, not a very rigorous scientific method around here--it's lucky I happened to check the jar on the kitchen windowsill one day and see a butterfly because it probably would have starved to death otherwise)

The butterfly that hatched out of this looked like this:

 The kids were amazed.  Eli didn't even try to smack it--which is his go-to for pretty much all members of the insect class these days.

I think we caught it so newly hatched that it was drying its wings still.  We put it on a tree by our porch so it could safely undergo child supervision and still have a chance at survival.  It flew away in about 30 minutes.

Next up: We caught this spiky fellow at the kids' grandparents' house.  Within a couple of days he dropped off a part of his caterpillar body and made this chrysalis:

Not quite as brilliant as the first one, but not to shabby nonetheless. Fast forward a couple more weeks and Loren discovered that this butterfly had emerged:

I didn't get a very good picture of it, because as soon as the kids took it outside...

it flew!  How amazing.  I could probably do a quick google search and find out what kind of butterflies these were, and also why they drip pink liquid when they hatch, but for now I'm pretty content with the whole not-so-scientific side of butterfly magic.  Thank you butterflies for letting us observe your amazing metamorphosis!

a peck of pickled peppers

Summer is in full swing.  The days are full of various ramblings outside.  The to-do list is ever-lengthening, just as the days are (or have been up until Saturday). Growing season wise, this summer has been kind of ideal--lots of of sunshine with a few good rainy days here and there.  The gardens are loving it. So are the weeds.

We have been harvesting our first few eats from the gardens.  Fresh greens mostly.  The kids are fondest of the butter lettuce so far, but we will have many more good things soon.

I picked my first round of peppers from in the sun room.  I can't believe how crazy the pepper plants are going in there.  These sweet and slightly spicy ones looked like they wanted to become pickled peppers.  So they are in the process of lacto-fermenting on the kitchen counter.  If they turn out any good I will report back with a recipe.

Another funny, and random note from the garden--I do believe the children have been doing a little guerrilla planting in my raised beds.  I found many a good-looking poppy seedling amongst the cabbages this week.  They have all been re-homed to more suitable locations.  Gardens, like children, are so full of delightful surprises.  You just never know what you are going to get!

Good things...

 We caught a fairly large & spiky looking caterpillar in the greenhouse this morning.  Sadie made it this comfortable home in a jar.  Eli offered it some of his meat to eat--so I guess that is our new family pet.  Name still unspecified.

Bugs and worms are a subject of much fascination amongst these two.  Eli has been smacking mosquitoes and squishing flies in the windowsills.  He is getting pretty ninja about it, so I was only partly surprised when he brought me a bee pinched between two fingers last week and said proudly, "skeevo!" (mosquito). Yikes! Poor bee.  We are working on insect identification.  So much to learn!

 Some days I just can't even believe how fast these children are growing.  They are different sometimes even one day to the next.

Eli has started using the potty and is talking up a storm. He wants to be doing everything that Sadie does these days.  He is beginning to get into imaginative play which is so cool to see.  He is also a major fan of his DaDa right now. Despite his natural bent towards all things rough and rowdy, he is a perfect snuggler. Seriously, I couldn't have asked for a more cuddly child.

 It seems like Sadie has grown by about 4 inches this year.  She has so much more hand-eye coordination and independence than last summer.  Yesterday we had to go to the dentist to get a shard of something sharp (flaked coconut maybe?) dislodged from her gums and she didn't even shed a tear.  She is all about princesses, fairies and fancies, but she is strong and brave too.  She seems to be gifted with a keen understanding of the natural world, and she is a whiz at plant identification.

Hello Good Life, it's DaDa here.  Mum left her blog post up partially unfinished so I thought I would take an early Father's Day license and say how much I appreciate the wonderful, intelligent, insightful, compassionate, patient, gifted and altogether beautiful woman of this house that we all love to call Mom.  Thanks to YOU, Tara, for helping me be a good DaDa, and growing this fantastically crazy and delightful bunch of grommets we call our family.  That's all, DaDa out.  Back to your irregularly scheduled Good Life...

a bouquet for Sadie

All last winter Sadie handed me bouquets of dried flowers from roadsides and ditches.  On our walks through our woods and nature trails she collected brittle yarrow and grass tufts by the fistfull. When the first blush of spring kissed our landscape she lined the windowsills with mason jars of dandelions and cranes bill, wild roses and dogwood. What an extravagance, now that summer is here, to be able to go out with clippers and fill a large vase with cut flowers from the garden.  It seems like maybe only yesterday or ages ago that I was little girl like Sadie, filling up any spare glassware in my mama's kitchen with whatever loveliness the season had to offer. It is a joy to hold a gathering of stems and blossoms for a moment, then tuck them into a vase to see them fall this way and that with an unstudied elegance.  They may only last a day or two (or sometimes just an hour or two) but I hope with all my mother's heart  & my cupboard of canning jars that Sadie never outgrows the joy of gathering flowers for the kitchen table.

50 shades of green

 1. SPRUCED UP

2. LIVELY LEMON LEAF

 

 3. HONEYSUCKLE HANGOVER

4.  STRAWBERRY PEEKABOO

5.  FERN FOREST

 6. GOOSEBERRY GAUNTLET

 7. APPLE BOUGH

 8. TINY TURNIP TOP

 9. COLE CROP RAINDROP

10.  PICKLING PEPPER

11. TRES TOMATO

12. PICASSO PETUNIA

and finally....

13."BATHROOM STOOL"

um, the kind you build from lumber scraps

 so your kids can get up to the sink to wash all the garden dirt off their hands.

Okay, so that's only 13, but you get the point.

Wheee! SUMMER!

tiny!

Spring is here.
All around us the tiniest most determined green things are bursting into bud & bloom.
The songbirds are the last ones to bed and the first ones up.
Sadie and Eli are barefoot running here and there--
occupied with important tasks like making a rainbow with the spray from the hose,
or waving garden stakes perilously close to someone's eye.
The trees are dusted with that perfect spring green color that evades adjectives.
Hens are brooding eggs in the coop.
I'm leaving my plants outside tonight.
Here's hoping...
Spring is a hopeful season, after all.

rocket science

 We all took advantage of the mild spring weather today to work outside getting some raised beds put together for the garden.  I guess more accurately, Loren & I were building raised beds.

 Sadie & Eli were building a rocket ship.  They spent a couple hours happily entertained inside the frames, with some pots, dirt, and the ever popular "bucket-o-birch-logs."

The joy and imagination of childhood.  It isn't rocket science, and yet, it kind of is.

Did you ever grow anything in the garden of your mind?

This week as I was picking up some seed starting mix at the local garden center a bag of bulbs caught my eye:

Lily of the Valley (that's Convallaria majalis, for my fellow botany geeks).  Sigh.  How lovely.  And I'm always on the lookout for some shade loving plants to beef up my cottage-style (read: chaotic and rambling) perennial garden.  How perfect would these be... and hardy to zone 2 none the less!  I asked the garden lady if they were poisonous, and she looked at me like I was crazy.  "You're not planning to eat them are you?" she says. "No," I say, "but my 18-month old might give them a try."  "Now why would he do that?" she asks.  I bite my cheek to keep from asking, "are you serious? Because he's 18 months old."  But thankfully Edward Scissor Hands aka The Christmas Tree Guy steps in and says, "I ate every plant I could get my hands on for the first 5 years of my life.  At least that what my mom tells me. I turned out okay for the most part. Just keep Poison Control on your speed dial."  I pull out my phone--and show them both that poison control is indeed on my speed dial already, and then I google convallaria and as it turns out it is poisonous.  Very poisonous. And as an added bonus, when it's done flowering, it grows delightful looking red berries.  So I guess it's out for the time being.  It does bring up an interesting point though, when you are a mom of littles who love to ramble outside all the livelong summer days where there are plenty of poisonous native plants even if you don't intentionally grow them in your garden:  How do you keep your kids safe from accidental poisoning?

With Sadie, who has a very well established sense of caution, it was enough to give her a blanket warning on eating any mushrooms, and then begin situational berry identification guidelines with her.  She can now accurately identify dogwood berries and baneberries, which are two of the main poisonous around our place.  We are working on wildflowers now.  Currently her favorite book is a plants of Alaska flip guide, which is coming in handy as a teaching tool.  She's also big enough to know to ask about a plant if she has questions.  Not sure how it will go with Eli. He is more of a caution to the wind fellow.  I'm banking on close supervision and lots of yummy and edible landscaping that he can safely browse close to home--and a whole lot of grace.

But back to the edible landscaping idea, I really am trying to establish some permaculture on our land that is edible and kid-friendly.  As evidenced by the fact that my kids will happily eat raisins and week old potato chips out from under furniture, it is clear that young children have a very innate desire to forage in their environment.  I'm sure there is more scientific evidence that points to that fact out there somewhere (a study in Scandinavian countries comes to mind) , but I have met my google question search quota for the week already. 

There's a lot of thought that goes into establishing your permaculture, and it's intimidating, and I just don't have the time or $1600 to take the local class this spring.  That's why the book Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist is now at the top of my homesteading reads wishlist.

 

early Mothering Day present...hint, hint?

Lastly, in the garden of my mind I'm trying hard to make a spot for some honeybees.  I've been told  that beekeeping isn't rocket science, but there is something about it that sure intimidates the heck out of me....but oh to have some fresh, home-grown honey... and your trees and cane fruit adequately pollinated to boot.  Almost too good to pass up.  I'm currently plowing my way through the Beekeepers Bible.  Holy tome of amazing information!  Still, thinking the safest bet in the end will be to hit up some local knowledge.

And finally, to round things off, we decided to host a little seed/start swap potluck here at the end of the month to celebrate the kickoff of growing season and be a grounds for exchanging knowledge & ideas.  If you're local and want to attend leave me a note and I will get you the info.

Happy daylight savings, and may the garden of your mind be a source of pure delight in these last winter months.

nature tables

The sun has been shining and the weather has been trying to fool us into thinking spring is finally here.  It's not.  Not in early March in Alaska unless the world's weather has just turned on its head for good {can't entirely rule that possibility out at this point}.  The kids have been collecting treasures and Sadie and I have done a couple crafts to celebrate nature in this inbetweener season.

 We painted these birdhouses and decorated them with twigs and moss.  Sadie did the green one and I did the other one. 

Loren found this tiny birdhouse blown down in the woods after a big windstorm a few weeks ago.  We've been admiring its remarkable craftsmanship (even some horse hairs in there).

 This is Eli's nature table.  Sticks and pine cones he's collected and some birch bark that came off the firewood.  A nice yellow backdrop painted by Sadie at preschool reminding us of the spring sunshine.  This nature table gets taken down and reassembled by Eli about 5 times a day, so it is in a constant stage of evolution--kind of like nature. 18-month old kids are miniature zen masters.

I finally got around to staining the shelves I built in November....Yikes!  They are housing the kids treasures and some very wonderful driftwood as well as our Valentines willow, which is growing leaves!  The kids are in total wonderment that you can plant a bare stick in water and in a few weeks it will sprout.  I'm sure there will be all kinds of sprouting experiments to look forward to in the very near future, what with seed-starting season just around the corner.

and speaking of seed starting.  This is Sadie's new self-designated project.  She has been cutting out all the flowers she likes from the seed catalogs {all of a sudden she can do scissors quite proficiently!} and pasting them into this book.  Yesterday she asked me if Marry Poppins could bring some magic water and sprinkle it onto the book to make the flowers grow into a real garden.  I love the three-year-old world of magical realism.  I see an all-pink flower growing plot for Sadie amongst the garden projects this year.  I love that she is a February garden dreamer just like her mama.  But March is not just dreaming time, it's planting and building and scheming time....It feels wonderful to have some purposeful, satisfying work ahead--like we've finally rounded the corner on winter and are heading full-speed ahead to spring! 

The Bigger Picture

As I write this I am enjoying a quiet house (Loren put himself to bed with the kids) and a cup of herbal tea.  There have been very few moments of stolen solitude this month.  February can be a tough month for me, smack in the middle of winter and prone to the post-holiday blues etc.  I vowed to make it different this year, and different it was.  We came down with round two of the stomach flu.  I didn't even know you could get it twice in a winter. You can.  That knocked me out.  For two weeks.  I was so tired I could barely get through the days.  I think it terrified me--a glimpse of what it would feel like to not be able to care for my family and self--that threw me into an emotional tail spin and just as I was getting back on my feet the kids came down with a hacking cough, irksome enough to keep us all awake at night. I did my best to snuggle them and humidify them and use homeopathic remedies galore.  I even slathered them in garlic-infused coconut butter before bed (this actually kind of worked, and made them smell like scampi).  It seems like--knock on REDWOOD--that everyone is on the mend. Except that poor Eli is now undergoing a major sleep regression.

 He has decided he is too big for naps, and after a crappy 30 minute morning nap he refuses to sleep for the rest of the day. I might be more willing to roll with it if he weren't so fiercely grumpy.  Like sister looks at him wrong and he flings himself onto the floor in a writhing tantrum of agony grumpy.  Ugh.  It's not pretty.  And nap time involves an hour of screaming, thrashing and pleading--and that's just my role.  All this attention aimed at the youngest has left the eldest out of sorts, and she has decided to embark on a journey of a thousand whines.  I'm not going to lie.  I have locked myself in the bathroom more than once this week, and turned the fan on just to have the impression of quiet.

Weeks like this are hard.  They make it hard to see the beauty in the journey. It becomes easy to loose sight of the forest for the trees, as the saying goes.  

But these little people who have pushed me beyond my physical and mental limits this month also anchor me with the daily reminder to celebrate small triumphs.  A peaceful bedtime, a dinner cooked that everyone ate and enjoyed (so rare these days).  The delight of a pocket full of Valentines brought home from preschool.  Polka-dot socks and a twirling dress.  A hot cup of joe in the morning.  Pine cones.  It doesn't matter how many pine cones there are in the world, Eli picks each one up and treats it like its the finest treasure in the kingdom. 

And isn't that how we should approach our days?  Each one a precious gift--a rare treasure to be clutched tightly even though it will inevitably crumble a little in our awkward, well-meaning fingers.  Many times this week I have had to scrape myself up out of a self-pitying heap and remind myself of this. Take a breath, start over.

I know that someday in the not-so-distant future I will get to have an uninterrupted conversation with another grown-up.  Go on a date with my husband.  Make some friends here in Palmer.  Finish some of the house/woodworking/sewing projects that need to be done.  But for now we just need to find our rhythm again. 

and we will.