Fun with mud

It's been fun to see the kids play in the mud.  Since the flooding we had a few weeks ago, there has been plenty of it.  You may remember this picture.

The kids are pictured playing in the right side of where this pond had formed.  At first I didn't want them anywhere near it.  Several pairs of shoes were destroyed and countless outfits washed.  Then I was inspired by Lise, whose blog In the Purple House started showing how she encourages the children she babysits and her own daughter to explore in the same way.  I had a bit of a lightbulb moment, when I realized that all this time I've been encouraging my kids to explore nature and at the same time don't want them to get dirty.  Really silly. 

My daughter informed me that they were playing with the mud and creating things that were good for the earth.  She couldn't be any more correct.  By allowing the kids to explore their world and create a true love of nature, I'm growing children that will grow up to protect our earth.  They will be empowered to stand up for the environment.  I couldn't be more proud of them. 

In other news, my blueberry bushes are starting to come back.  This one is hard to see, but it is leafing out.  Not all of them are doing so, but they look healthy all the same.  Since they are still sitting in quite a bit of mud, I'm having a hard time getting too close, but I have hope that they at least aren't all dead. 

Different than I imagined

It's been a crazy day.  The family has been sick.  I've been racing from one thing to the next.

At a certain point I stood in my doorway wearing an apron and holding a hammer and thinking that this was certainly not where I thought I would be.  My morning had consisted of laundry, cleaning bathrooms, making bagels and bread, feeding the chickens, the dog and whoever wasn't sick.  I had stripped beds and vacuumed.  I had emptied trash and washed out recyclables. 

In the middle of all of this, J came running over to tell me that the chickens had escaped.  We then spent the next few minutes catching rogue hens.  It turns out that I'm a pretty good chicken wrangler.  Don't be jealous of my talents, people. 

While we were at it, we took off the lights and removed the water heater.  Then moved the chickens to the front.  This is when I got the hammer to remove the plastic from their tractor.  Thus, I now had an apron on, bread in the oven and a hammer in my hand. 

The thing is, I'm having a blast.  I'm not a Nurse Practitioner working in an ICU, which is where I was headed.  I'm a Mom, teacher, head chef, chicken wrangler, housekeeper and kisser of booboos.  It's so much better.  The rewards of a happy,( usually) healthy family are so much more.  I love my life.  Even when it's crazy.

How do you feel about Valentine's Day

I must confess, I'm not much for V day.  When Hubby and I were newly together, he would get me flowers and chocolates, balloons and teddy bears.  Over the years, we've stopped with it altogether.  It seems too much like a Hallmark holiday.  Created to sell more stuff.  Hubby and I know we love each other, we don't need candy to say it. 

The kids are at the age that they love stuff like this, though.  Today we're off to a Valentine's Day party with our homeschool friends.  After filling out 72 cards, complete with Barbie and Lego stickers, I'm about done in.  They love giving and getting fun cards and candy.  It's another party for them.  Who doesn't love a party?

 

My feeling is to look at this and think about the waste.  Yes, I could have had them make cute little valentine's from scrap paper and recycled items.  The fact was, that I could barely make myself get the easy pre-made valentines from CVS.   Maybe I'm just not a romantic person.  Maybe I'm just a Valentine's Grinch.  Either way, I just don't like this holiday.

Better than candy

 

Ok, so I've said before that I have a bit of a seed/gardening supply habit.  It has now passed onto the kids.  These things happen.  I should have known that if I used these things in front of my kids, that they would think it was ok and start experimenting themselves.  They've branched out into flowers more than I usually do though.  They want to attract the bee crowd and possibly set up a hive.  They keep begging every time we pass a seed display.  The other day they decided that it would be cool to look at all my garden porn.  I guess I didn't hide it well enough. 

Seriously though, do you see that electronic soil tester?  It gives readings for ph and organic matter.  How cool is that?  I had seen one before on another blog, and now I have my own!  I had to get some new gloves as well.  I'm hoping that the red color will stand out better, so that when I set them down, I can find them.  

I now have everything that I need to start my gardening year off.  We got the lights for my new seed starting shelves, soil, containers and seeds.  I'm sure that I'll be tempted into buying other things along the way, but for now, I'm good.  Off to start some onion seeds!

Vacation, all I ever wanted

I am currently sitting in the living room of a friend's cottage in New Hampshire.  Morgan is taking a break from coloring to give me hugs and kisses.  Noah is playing a game and Hubby is helping Noah with the game.  Toby is relaxing at my feet and there is a fire going in the woodstove.  We've just finished having chowder for dinner.  It's heaven. 

We have been desperate to have a break from the chaos of our everyday lives for a while.  It would have been lovely to relax at home, it would also be impossible.  Hubby runs 2 businesses out of our home, I homeschool the kids and do multitudes of other things daily, including helping Hubby.  We also happen to be the house where all the kids come to play.  For these and many other reasons, we needed to go away. 

So Edas Escape it was.  Our friend D has this wonderful place that once belonged to his lovely grandmother Eda.  We've come up here before and it is such a refuge.  Since it has a kitchen, we can bring food up from home, or go to the grocery store 20 minutes away.  Then we don't have to leave, unless we want to.  Just what we needed. 

We plan to hibernate here for a few days.  When we're good and ready, we'll go out exploring.  In the meantime, I plan to take a few walks with my camera.  Hopefully I'll have some good pictures to post in the next few days.  Ahhh, this is heaven

The Remains of the Day

The wrapping and ribbons, boxes and bows.  This is all that remains of all the money spent, thought put into gifts, wrapping carefully done.  The kids happily ripped open their gifts, thrilled when Grandma and Grandpa arrived with more goodies.  We really try not to go overboard.  The kids get 3 presents each from us and 1 from Santa.  However, there are also gifts from the grandparents and aunts and uncles.

Overall, we seem to have a far smaller Christmas than most, but still quite impressive.  The kids can really enjoy their gifts when they aren't so overwhelmed.   When Noah was little, we used to go a little overboard.  He never really enjoyed it.  He would open a gift and then be irritated that we wouldn't let him play with it, because there were so many more to open. 

I've thought for years on the wrapping paper issue.  My family has always saved boxes, gift bags, ribbons and the like.  We also tend to be rather crafty as well, I keep thinking that we should make fabric gift bags to use for family gifts.  My thought was to use up the rather large pile of wrapping paper first.  I had a nice box set up to throw all the paper in for recycling.  Then Hubby informed me that there was a large sign in front of the paper recycling at the dump prohibiting any wrapping paper.  Huh?  For whatever reason, it must all be put into the trash.  What a waste.  I guess the wrapping paper will last virtually forever now, waiting to be used on non-family gifts.  Next year I'll be wrapping everything in fabric.  Sometimes, I just need a little push.  How was your holiday?

Mommy, I don't like the store bought veggies.

That was what my 8 year old told me at dinner tonight.  My gardener's and my mother's heart sang.  We were eating an organic mixed veggie mix from Trader Joes and he kept picking out the green beans and telling me they didn't taste like real green beans.  Well, how about that? 

We then started talking about the fact that I was trying to grow all of our veggies.  The kids have always helped me pick out different seeds for the garden.  We like trying different colored carrots and such.  Tonight we were debating whether it was better to start a permanent strawberry bed, or an asparagus bed.  The kids both like asparagus, but of course picked strawberries.  Hubby picked the asparagus.  I may have to build one more bed. 

The next conversation was the kids listing all the vegetables that were their favorites.  They both ran out of fingers and toes.  How cool is that?  Since my Fedco catalog arrived this afternoon, you know what I'll be doing as soon as I post this. 

First Snow

This is one of the reasons I love living in New England.  The defined seasons are so joyous to me.  The first snow of the year is magic.  The kids woke up so excited to go outside.  The world was new and beautiful.

As I look around I realize there are still things to be put away.  The snow was a bit of a surprise.  We were supposed to get mostly rain in my neck of the woods.

The chickens were excited too.  We had put up plastic on one side of their tractor the other day.  Its on the side where the wind usually comes from to protect them from drifts in their run.  It appears to have worked perfectly, although we only got an inch or so.

Toby was thrilled as well.  He loves the snow.  His favorite is the deep snow.  Last year he became rather famous on our street as the king of the snow pile.  Every day he would be out on the hill of snow created by the plow.

I'm curious to see how the leeks will do now.  This snow won't last long and we aren't predicted to get anymore for a bit.

The kids may not come in today.  We'll have some hot chocolate and waffles when they do finally make it in.  

Apple Picking

I love apple picking.  We were late going this year, but thankfully there were still plenty left.  I packed the kids and the wagon into my car and off we went to Honey Pot Hill.  Its a great orchard about an hours drive from me.

The only problem was that most of the apples were too far up for us to reach.  Here is Noah trying to find apples low enough to pick.

Any that Morgan found were instantly eaten.

These were out of reach, taunting me.  I am scared of ladders and didn't have my 6'4" hubby to get them for me.

Every tree had hundreds of apples on the ground under it.  So much waste made me very sad.  It was impossible to walk without making applesauce as you went.

The wagon was very useful, since we ended up with a bushel of apples.  The kids are excited to make applesauce from them.

It really was a perfect day.

Over at the farm store, they had pumpkins for sale as well.  They look so nice all lined up.  When the kids were little we would have them sit on the pumpkins for pictures.

I loved the rows of future trees.  This orchard is truly massive.  We have been going there for years, but ended up in an area that I didn't even know existed.  Tomorrow I'll post pics of the animals they have.