a little crafty nest

moments from the week

Just a few glimpses of the better moments, the calmer moments.  Because, this week was a bit, well, trying.  Night weaning is on-going, and Huckley and I are still trying to create a new rhythm to our nights.  I do believe we are over the hump, and last night he woke just once to roll over...with no treading up and down the hallway in the dark!  And just as I was getting a bit more sleep, my oldest son and I both got the flu.  Gratefully, it was a 24 hour kind-of-thing and my husband was home because of the long weekend. 

And here we are a few days later, with not much to show for the week, but this...

~ transplanting the last of our basil, before planting it maybe next week?

~ seeing how my big boy enjoys weeding his garden bed...he likes it nice and tidy, like his mama

~ watching the neighbour clean up around our garden fence posts after digging our pond

~ anticipating new garden gates being made by Papa

~ enjoying having my biggest boy in an herb class for homeschoolers...and he loves it!  He has come home with nettle vinegar, dandelion lemonade, and comfrey tincture and salve.  He made himself his own first aid kit and every night asks for new "patients".  Tonight, while massaging oil on my "wounds", Forrest tells me he wants to be an herb doctor while Sunshine chimes in she wants to be a "massager".  Sounds good to me!

~ loving that my six year old son was taught to needlefelt at the herb class because he loves it so!  He made a dandelion fairy for a friend this week and I was amazed at  his concentration and determination, and then his pride in his work.

~ enjoying all the spinach goodness coming from our garden

~ planting all the flowers out, bringing some cheerful colour to the gardens and house

~ feeling grateful to my husband for being the glue of the household while I lay in bed with the flu

Here's wishing you a healthy, happy weekend outdoors, my friends!

pondering

After several years of on and off discussions, we took a leap and began a project.  A big project.  A project that we have spent much time wondering and pondering over, ahem.

Tucked behind our blackberry spiral, in a quiet, unused part of our property is a marshy area.  Josh is an avid fly-fisherman and he has always had a vision of a pond.  As we tossed the idea around over the years, it became obvious that my idyllic vision of a pond is definately not the same as my husband's.  At all.  However, like many things in marriage, compromise is needed and I let it all go...so we moved forward to create a small trout pond with lots of plant life and animals. 

So this is where we are at...a giant, gravelly hole in the ground.  I have to swallow hard and look away from the mountain of sod (and topsoil!) that sits behind me in this photo.  I do have faith in my ever-optimistic husband and that he will create something beautiful out of this crater.  He envisions trout and lily pads and ducks, while I see turtles and a dock...and winter skating ~ yes!

Perhaps the word got out that there is a new habitat to explore as the children found this enormous Woodhouse toad on the wrong side of the creek.

The children delighted in following the wee hops this fella did throughout our kitchen garden.  He was about 4 inches long and made the sweetest bleating sounds, just like a lamb ~ really!  I find I have to constantly remind the children to be gentle with the creatures, and they did a great job with Mr. Toad.  At lunch, we came inside and looked through this book, which is a wonderful beginner book for 3 and 6 year old biologists.

I hope to find more of these over the summer to make a science basket filled with magnifying glasses, field guides, binoculars, and more.  With a pond in our backyard, I feel we will have hours of studying, identifying and learning right out our door.

Having said that, I am very cautious and concerned regarding the danger of water, and I am relieved that the pond is still a bit of a walk from the house, especially for little ones. 

As far as filling it goes, we are looking into natural ways to keep the water from seeping out.  It is fed by our creek with a drainage back into it, and we will be catching the trout to eat from the pond, so it is important to us not to use plastic pond liners.   We've been told to use clay and let it settle, and we are looking into a local source for that.  Does anyone have experience with this?

For now, there remains a big hole.  And while it is not exactly how I envisioned it, just this picture alone tells me this is a good idea.  A very good idea, indeed.

moments from the week

This week we leapfrogged over late spring and landed, kerplop!, into the middle of summer.  Lots of sunshine and hotness and seeking the shade.  And lots of...

...experiments with water...

...new skills learned...

...favourite places to climb aboard...

...bits of togetherness, with Nana and with each other...

Yes, a good, hot, summery week ~ in Springtime! 

Tonight is night #3 for night-weaning my youngest.  He will be two years old in about 5 weeks and my exhaustion is pushing me to do this.  I feel very ready...and very reluctant.  The first two nights proved that it does not get easier with each successive child.  Huckley is by far, showing the most resistance to this most unwelcome of changes.  Poor fellow.  It is so tempting to succumb to the tears (both of ours) and just give him what he wants, but for many reasons this is best for all.  As soon as Mr. Sun wakes up in the morning, he gets free reign again with his beloved oy-yoi's.  (Yes, Huckley calls them oy-yoi's because it seems all too often I would collapse in a chair to nurse him and quietly exclaim under my breath, oy-yoi-yoi!)  All I can do is hold him all night long, sit with him and try and calm his aching little heart.  I am hoping tonight will be less of the marathon we experienced last night...oh, how hard it is to hold back the thing he loves so much.  So.  Hard. 

And this too shall pass.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend...it is a Long Weekend here in Canada which means Papa will be around here more ~ hooray!!!

notes from the garden ~ second week of may

On this lovely, sunshiney Mama's Day weekend, I wanted to be outside as much as possible, with family by my side.  Being in the garden is just about the perfect way for me to spend my time, and with Papa minding the littles nearby, I got to dig and plant and water to my heart's content.

Garlic's thriving...

Blueberry bushes budding out...

Granny's maple tree seems decorated for this special day ~ I love the garlands it is wearing!

I have been spending much of my time on this patch of the garden beside our two big garlic beds.  This is the back gate (though, the gate is still in Josh's shop being made), and I am digging and digging and digging out the couch grass and tenacious bracken.  After this monotonous and finicky task, I lay landscape fabric and then gravel and then woodchips.  I guarantee this insures no weeds get in.  It is a tremendous amount of work, but it is so worthwhile for there are no weeds to be battling.  My window for finishing this 12' x 11' space is closing as soon the mosquitoes arrive and surely I am not that crazy to do this while fending off hungry bloodsuckers!

Other garden chores happening around here include breaking down the eggshells we have collected since January.  If anyone visits my home, they often quietly note the overflowing pile of eggshells toppling over in the cookstove warming oven.  We save all the eggshells to be ground into somewhat of a powder to sprinkle generously in the soil as we plant out the tomato starts.  Apparently, the calcium in the eggshells prevents blossom end rot...and I think it works because I've never had that problem with them.  I also add it to the beds that will have tomatoes the next year, and then the compost gets the rest.  But, the job of grinding the shells is a popular one...

I'm a believer in using what you have around your home to help your garden grow.  Eggshells for fertilizer, comfrey leaves for garden teas, toilet paper rolls for collars against cutworms, matchsticks for pepper plants, manure for making the black gold...it goes on and on.  I am always testing out folklore advice, and jotting notes down in my gardening journal. 

This week, we also planted our greenhouse full of tomatoes, peppers, basil and cucumbers.  And wouldn't you know it...that first night we had a spring killing frost!  I scrambled out of bed and raced down to the greenhouse to assess the damage, which wasn't too bad.  Somehow the frost crept in and claimed two tomatoes, two peppers and four basil plants ~ all of which I have replacements sitting under the lights inside here.  Thank goodness for being cautious!

Do you see all that green mossy looking stuff on the right and at the bottom?  That is volunteer dill plants...thousands of them!  A few years ago, I didn't take the plants down before they seeded and now we have so much dill it is ridiculous!  Even after all the stepping on it (though we try and be careful), it still springs up anew...hardy stuff, that dill!

And finally, Josh and the children went to a local planer and filled up the truck with sawdust.  Such fun to back it into the spot by the blackberry spiral and jump into the mountain of sawdust they scooped off!  Well, such fun the first time, because sawdust down your boots and shirt and even in your undies is a wee bit uncomfortable.  Lesson learned, this year.  Next year, they will undoubtedly relearn that one...again.

I moved almost the whole pile onto the pathways of the spiral in under 24 hours...oh, my back is tired!  It is a little crazy this whole spiral, but I confess to loving it!  Last year, we had 3 canes give off berries that allowed a few desserts and one freezer bag filled, in addition to a lot of eating.  3 canes!!!  I have already counted 12 canes for this year, with over 30 growing for next year.  I look forward to the jungle this will become.  It is a lot of work to maintain the pathways here, but while the children are little, it is so worth it.  They have such fun in here and that keeps me going.

It is incredible the amount of work that growing food requires, but it is such honest, hard work that I love!  My body aches now, but this past weekend of digging and hauling was so incredibly satisfying...with papa taking care of the littles nearby, hooting and hollering.  Indeed, a blissful mama's day for me.  I hope you all enjoyed your days with your sweet ones, too!

moments from the week

This week, I am happy to remember...
~ water play in the Big Garden with Tonka trucks, allowing me to work on the tedious task of digging out some couch grass and creating some more growing space

~ how quickly and thoroughly mud play consumes clean clothing

~ a surprise visit from someone we wish we'd see more often, bearing gifts of bubbles and books

~ the beginning of dandelion bouquets

~ Forrest's first herbal class with other little ones his age...and the excitement over being allowed by the herbalist to needle felt a nettle gnome to protect his nettle vinegar

~ the relief that I wasn't there to witness the needle felting

~our little village's annual Water Unity Festival...always fun to see the colourful locals celebrating Water and Life with parades, children's activities, a samba band, dancing, and poetry

~ how my children decided, on their own, to dress up for the parade...and pose their brother beneath a tree for me to photograph

~ the intrigue that a sample of river water and all its critters could hold for these three littles

~ overhearing the conversations my six year old is having on the phone with his friend from across the river...such giggling and silliness...for over half an hour!

~ how much I love our two four-legged companions, Cocoa and Nyla...such happiness they bring with their sloppy, wet-nosed, in-your-face, relentless, faithful love

~ how simple life can be

pretty little frocks

Those pretty little frocks my daughter has acquired over the past few years are slowly gathering into a pile of outgrown clothing.  It makes me kind of sad, in a materialistic way, as so many of them were so darn sweet.  And in a mama-kind-of-way, it means my little girl is growing up!  Sighs.

But I don't feel quite done with them, yet.  (I mean, the dresses).  So what to do with several beautiful but tight-fitting outfits?  As many of you do already, I re-purposed them...into skirts.  So simple, so easy, so functional.  And so stinkin' cute!

Most of them required a little snipping here and there, a waistband added with an elastic and finito!  The orange and white sundress only needed straps to be taken off as there is a zipper up the back.  Each skirt took less than 20 minutes to fix, if that. 

Sunshine tells me she will wear them for fancy times.  I'm not sure what a "fancy time" is, but I look forward to finding out!

notes from the garden ~ early may

Already my garden note-taking is falling by the wayside as there are so many other things to tend to right now.  Between watering the indoor starts, digging temporary beds in the newly fenced in Big Garden, transplanting some timid flower starts (that are not liking the morning coolness it seems), and setting out lots of veggie starts...my garden journal has remained closed for far too many days now.

Ah, well, it all grows upwards right?  Eventually I'll see evidence of what I've done...(I like to give myself positive affirmations when I know I "ought" to be doing something that I've neglected).  But I do have a few pictures from the garden.

I did plant out the potatoes into a makeshift bed in the Big Garden.

Because we have a creek running through the property, there is much too much gravel in the soil.  I prefer the raised beds for so many reasons, but I thought I'd try 70' of potatoes directly into the earth.  There are yellow, red and purple varieties straight from the shelves of our local organic grocery store.  I always use these spuds for my "seed" potatoes, but in the future I hope to save my own.

These last few weeks have been cool and damp, giving us a bounteous nettle and morel mushroom harvest. 

These photos show the first harvest of both nettles and morels, right from our property.  My little Sunshine is an expert morel spotter as her eagle eyes don't miss a single mushroom!  I'm so happy she loves to go morel hunting every day...Yum!

Last year we moved our driveway to give us more privacy from the road and it created a little spot for a very special tree.  My granny is 101 years old, and every birthday we get a little money to spend on ourselves.  Usually, I use it to pay bills but last summer, I bought a Sunset Maple tree and planted it right on that newly created spot.  My granny was an incredible gardener, and back then, it was not only a necessity to grow your own food, but it was also only organic.  They didn't call it organic, of course, they just called it food.  Funny that now, in a supermarket, that kind of produce is labelled "organic" while conventionally sprayed and treated and fertilized and chemicalized produce is unlabelled.  I wonder what granny would think if she thought about that!

Anyhow, we also planted 40 daffodil bulbs last fall around granny's tree.  It was hard work breaking the gravelly and rocky soil to place the bulbs, but we perservered...

Late in the winter, I began to think about those sleeping bulbs and every day I got more excited about what we would soon see.  Last weekend, they started popping up...and now...

Affirmation.  (At last count, 23 little bits of affirmation out of 40...not bad).

Isn't gardening all about affirmation?  Hope, promises, fulfillment.  'Tis a miraculous thing, indeed.

moments from the week

Stormy spring weather continues, allowing the garden to drink up fresh rain, turning everything into a vision of emerald abundance...I will never tire of the vibrant shades of spring greens, tinged with yellows...proof that miracles happen in the ordinariness of today.

My friend, Melanie, made a post about an ordinary day, which made me instantly think of something I read recently.  Many of you may know about Taproot magazine, brought to you by the multi-crafty-talented Soulemama and friends.  Well, my favourite essay in the whole lot was written by her husband (what a team!) and he wrote, "...somehow great things occur under that false cloak of monotony."  These words have stayed with me, whispering in my ear, reminding me to accept and even embrace this very moment ~ no matter how mundane it may seem.

When I look back through the camera card that records our week's everyday moments, they seem more than ordinary.  They do, in fact, seem extra-ordinary.  I feel blessed for these miracles that are occurring right before my very eyes. 

See my helpers, eager to do the simple tasks of our household...

a blurry photo of a determined Huckley bringing in the kindling

Forrest wanted to help me pick the first nettles of the season...well-protected

pancake morning...Sunshine mixes the wet ingredients til they are good and frothy

while Huckley is in charge of the dry ingredients, focused on keeping it all in the mixing bowl

After the more serious tasks of the household, comes the real work of childhood, imaginative play.

Josh brought these two rootballs home from the bush, on two separate excursions, this spring.  Sunshine is sitting in the fairy castle, with the knight's armament beside her against the woodshed.  There are already grand plans for the adventures of all the gnomes and fairies.

Indoors, the four season's playmat ignites their imagination.  A friend from maplerose made this beautiful work of art which is a real treasure.

Many a spring day you may find us beside our creek, throwing rocks, poking at the mud, playing with snails and toads, or just swinging.  On days like this, I sit quietly beside the littles, drinking in the spring goodness.

This last photo is a tender one for me, as it signifies the first time I really had to put solid boundaries down regarding nursing with Huckley.  He is 22 months old and still nurses on demand, around the clock.  I am happy with this arrangement, too, as he truly is the best night-time snuggler.  However, for awhile he has begun nursing in earnest at night, leaving me exhausted and sore.  After a few sleepless nights, I realized he wasn't eating as much for dinner, making him hungrier than usual during the night.  So, I have decided to be firm and consistent about eating first, nursing second.  Well, after nap on this day, it wasn't going to fly very easily and Huckley's determined streak came out.  Let's just say it was a long, tear-filled half hour...for both of us.  Forrest and Sunshine encouraged me to just nurse him, but I explained that he needed to know I wasn't going to give in on this one.  I held Huckley, I told him I loved him countless times, I acknowledged this was a hard thing for him to understand, but that it was important.  I told Forrest and Sunshine how I night-weaned each of them at about the same age and it was difficult, but necessary to the health of our household.  I'm not sure they believed me, but when Huckley finally understood he just had to take one bite before he could nurse, the tears dried and my sunny boy re-emerged.  Mama was forgiven.  Hours later, I'm still taking the Rescue Remedy for that one, but experience has shown me that this is just another of the many trials of motherhood.

Indeed, these mundane and everyday moments are what we make of them.  For me, they form the memories of my little one's childhood.

And they remind me, in a beautifully humbling way, of the wonderful company I keep.