Spring Fun

Everything is so new and fresh in the Springtime. The games the girls played last summer have been forgotten and are being newly discovered all over again by girls just a little older and just a little more mature. It warms a Mama's heart to see how the games change as my girls change, to watch Ruthie joining in the games in a way that she couldn't last year, to see her making up her own mind about how and what she wants to do, what she wants to wear, where she wants to go, the games changing as the other two make a space for her to be included.

Chalk play mixed with water play gives brilliant colors for sidewalk art.
Tree climbing has begun again in earnest around here. Anna climbing just a little bit higher than last year. Ruthie climbing for the first time on her own.

The colors of Spring, the smells of Spring, fill the air as the girls climb.

Simply glorious. Who wouldn't want to climb that tree with those incredible pink blossoms?!

Even in the garden Spring has begun. The greens are starting to poke up their little heads. This year Josie has a spot in the garden all her own. She's planting carrots, eggplant and strawberries, by her own choosing.

She and her Daddy'O carefully place the strawberries in the ground:

Even the finches are back, sitting on their eggs in their same spot right outside our door. The Daddy finch loves to sit on our bedroom windowsill and sing. It reminds me to soak in the moment of today, it will be gone all too soon.

'Tis the Season

Fall is the season of plenty around here. Local food grown on local family farms, food from our own garden and surrounding trees, everything coming ripe and ready all at once, so much fresh goodness on our table!

Carrot Tomato Soup for dinner, from pounds and pounds of fresh tomatoes and carrots picked that day (recipe found here on SouleMama's Blog). I'd never actually made Tomato Soup from fresh tomatoes before, but after coming home from Miller Farms today with 20 lbs of tomatoes (along with 16 other sacks full of the Fall harvest), I knew this was the day. The girls loved it. Who wouldn't love a creamy tomato soup with fresh basil in it? My cupboards and closets are stocked! I finished canning about 50 lbs of peaches today, along with 10 pint's of Grandma Jo's Special Sauce, aka Blender Ketchup (that's what I did with the rest of the 20 lbs of tomatoes that I didn't turn into soup).The smell of Grandma Jo's Special Sauce filled the house for two days while it cooked down. Mmm mmm mmm! It brought back so many memories of my own childhood. Isn't it amazing how many good feelings can be evoked just by a certain smell? Grandma Jo's Special Sauce is special indeed. If you're wondering what to do with your Fall harvest abundance of tomatoes, give this recipe a shot:

Grandma Jo's Special Sauce, aka Blender Ketchup

8 lbs tomatoes, washed, peeled* and stemmed

2 red bell peppers

2 green bell peppers

4 onions

3 c white vinegar

3 c sugar

3 T salt

1/2 tsp allspice

3 tsp dry mustard

1/2 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp hot red pepper

De seed and cut peppers in strips. Skin and quarter onions. Blend tomatoes, peppers and onion in blender. Bring to a boil in a large stockpot along with vinegar and sugar. Place other ingredients in a cheesecloth bag and add to pot. Simmer uncovered till reduced by half, about 24 hours.

Directions and times for canning blender ketchup can be found here.

*To peel tomatoes: dip them in a boiling water bath for about a minute and the skins will slide right off.

We are loving this Sauce in our house right now!

Pickles!

Making pickles is one of my favorite late summer activities. It is always fun to make something so yummy from things that we grew ourselves in our garden: cukes, dill and garlic.

Pickles are a whole family affair around here.

Anna got all the dill off the stems and put it in the sterilized jars:

Josie collected the seeds from the head of the plant and sprinkled them in the jar:
By the time our cukes are ready for pickling our dill is sparse and mostly gone to seed. But I have read that the seeds actually have more flavor than the dill, so we added a lot of them to each jar and that did the trick. (My mother-in-law also told me you can freeze the dill earlier in the season until you are ready to use it)

I sliced the cucumbers and and garlic and Ruthie loaded them into the jars:

Pour the boiling brine solution over the top (1 part vinegar : 3 parts water), let sit for 24hrs in the fridge and voila!

Yummy pickles to eat!

One of my all-time favorite foods.

Beauty on my Mind

Beauty is

This kind of laughter and fun on a hot day:

This kind of comfortable friendship, sharing in the joy of a new baby:


This kind of yummy abandon:

This kind of unsophisticated play:

This kind of delight in green growing things, paying attention to the details of the garden:

What is the beauty in my life? The grace we have for each other that lets us accept our differences and revel in each other's company. The grace we have for others and ourselves that lets us be light and joyful, free in life to connect and be present, not full bitterness or anger. Grace that gives us eyes to see and soak in the presence of God in the little moments of our daily life. That, to me, is the definition of joy and beauty.

Vacation is Over

And summer has begun.

At least it feels that way to me.

Which is better? Vacation or summer? I love them both. They seem mostly synonymous this time of year. Vacation, in this family, meant Mitch not working or schooling (and me not blogging). Summer means sunshine. I like it best when they both go together.

For those of you who have wondered where we have been and what we have been spending our time doing:

We have been doing

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Well, that's not really true. It can't be true in a house where three active little ones live. But we haven't gone anywhere and haven't done a lot of things that we normally count as normal in the daily rhythm of our hectic 'dad's in school' lives.
We HAVE been on lots of bike rides, spent lots of time in the garden now that we're finally past our frost date and can plant all the warmer weather crops!, gone to bed at a decent hour and gotten up at a decent hour, felt well rested!, played, laughed together all through our dinner meal, sat in the sunshine together, had a few normal bumps in the road that go with being in a time of transition between a crazy schedule and a normal, healthy, daily rhythm, had lots of family around, celebrated a graduation, said good-bye to a good friend who graduated and left the area, started a new summer job, enjoyed our morning coffee sitting on the couch together with both of us fully awake!, finished a ballet class...
And basically have fully embraced and enjoyed switching to a healthier rhythm of life for our family.

Congratulations, Mitch, on graduating with honors!

Hooray for Daddy'O!

Mitch with his brothers Chad and Jeb:

(Thanks for the pictures, Chad!)

Meeting my niece, little Maia Sage, for the first time:Windy bike rides with Jeanette, Michael, and Maia:

(Thanks for those pictures, Jeanette!)

See, we are still alive and quite well! Enjoying our days, laughing lots. Hooray for doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Compost Season Has Begun

Notice that I didn't say gardening season. The weather is finally starting to warm up, but with a last frost date still 6 weeks away, I'm not in a hurry to plant anything in the ground. But that's okay because I got to do my next favorite thing, playing with the compost! The best thing about being the garden liaison here in our community garden is that I am in charge of the compost (the other main benefit is that we get two garden plots instead of just one). So yesterday the girls and I headed out to fill the huge compost tumbler out at the garden. We have two big black bins that families in our apartments can throw their compost in year round. When the weather is warm enough I periodically fill our compost tumbler with the raw material in the black bins, along with weeds from the garden, leaves, and other garden waste. If I do it right I can have finished compost ready to put on the garden plots every 2-3 weeks. Of course, the mice enjoy this ready food source all winter long. They've had quite an easy life in the black bins. Until I came along with my shovel and pitchfork yesterday, that is. You should have seen them, two or three mice scurrying up out of their holes with each shovelful of compost. They couldn't quite figure out what had happened to their nice homes. Anna, Josie and Ruthie loved watching them, as long as they ran away from us when I scared them up. A few of them were pretty disoriented and had to be encouraged in the right direction. Today when we went out to spin the compost tumbler there were no mice to be seen in the almost empty black bin. Until next winter, little mice! We've enjoyed watching you scurry away from us all winter long as we came out to your home to dump out our compost. I hope you find nice summer quarters.

Does anybody else have this problem?

Counters literally covered in dirty dishes? Even the table has no space:
That's what happens when mom has been in a crafty mood! I've done really well lately keeping up with all the chores, we've had a good rhythm to our days and the girls help each morning and evening with their own chores. But then I started having fun! We were in desperate need of some new pot holders. Of course when I mentioned making some Anna and Josie wanted me to make each of them one first. Josie chose alligator material, Anna chose blue checked on one side and yellow striped on the other (which matched the apron I made her for Christmas one year) and then of course they all had to have dark purple on the outside. Here are the finished products:
A clean kitchen and table was definitely not a part of the finished product. We may have some fun new potholders but no clean pots to use them with! We had to eat our smoothie on the picnic table outside this afternoon because, as you saw, there was nowhere to eat at our table inside:


Anna and Josie had fun taking turns giving Ruthie little bites. Ruthie loved it:When Mitch brought in a huge bouquet of beets and beet tops for dinner tonight he had a fun time trying to find somewhere to put them, something to wash them in, and somewhere to chop them. He was resourceful and pulled out our last cutting board that actually fits over the top of the sink. You found some space, Mitch! We were cracking ourselves up.

I even got to use my new hot pad!

And later that night I made sure the kitchen looked like this:

Before I let myself do any more of this:

Ssshhh! Don't tell Anna! That's the quilt I'm making her for her birthday. I'm pretty excited about it. It's actually one that I started when I was pregnant with her and I finally decided to finish it hopefully in time for her 4th birthday less than two weeks away. I've been working on it every night after they are finally in bed asleep. That used to be the time that I would finish up any dishes I hadn't finished during the day so I've been getting behind on the dishes again, especially when my time during the day that should be spent doing dishes is spent making fun (and needed) potholders. Oh well. It's been a fun trade-off, I must say.

Change of Seasons

-An extra warm, cozy blanket on my bed last night (made with love by my sister Becky). I loved snuggling down under the weight of it with cold air on my cheeks.

-Find all the winter jackets in a hurry! Bundle up, vests on underneath, hoodies up. Ruthie wasn't quite sure of what to make of all these layers.

-We covered the tomato plants with a tarp last night. Josie and Daddy went out after dark and tied the corners down . We have so many green tomatoes on the vine still and we didn't want to lose them all.

-Grey skies. Clouds fogging up the top of Green Mountain and the Flatirons.

-The last of summer's hot weather bounty from our garden, brought in before it freezes.

-Chard and Kale still going strong! Cold weather won't hurt these yummy veggies for awhile. You can't even tell we've harvested two huge bunches for dinner in the last few day.
The season is definitely changing around here. I am enjoying it. Hunker down, get out all the pants and sweaters that have been hiding in the back of the closet all summer long, actually wear shoes, feel the chill in the air, watch the leaves just starting to turn... I like the change. I'm sure I'll be tired of the cold weather and layers of clothing long before we are done with them around here, but I like the new freshness of it right now, the excitement of watching the cycle of the seasons happening right before our eyes experienced with every sense in our bodies.

Pickles and Crab Apple Jelly

I tried my hand at making pickles yesterday and jelly today. I thought the pickles would be a flop because I was using sub-prime cukes ( didn't get around to making them until yesterday and they'd been picked a while ago, plus I think they were all slicing cukes not pickling ones). But they are the best pickles I have ever eaten! Dill from the garden, cukes from ours and Bill and Judy's garden, and Judy's recipe. Mmm Mmm Mmm. Quite simple, as cooking goes, and such amazing results! I thought it would be harder and that they would be a flop. What a yummy surprise.

The Crab Apple Jelly, on the other hand, was fun to make but I think it will be called Crab Apple Syrup for our pancakes this winter. We have a crab apple tree out by the garden. I had heard that you could make jelly from them (they're pretty tart to just eat straight) but I had no idea how. Then the other day we ended up bring a Little House Cookbook home from the library that had recipes in it for all the foods that the Ingles and Wilder families make in Laura's books. Crab Apple Jelly was in there! So we had to try. Mitch and the girls picked the apples, and then I went to work this morning. They're so little you don't even try to core them and make jam or apple sauce/butter out of them. You just cut them in half and remove the stems. Here is Anna helping me squeeze the pulp out of the juice after cooking the apples down: Cooking the juice and sugar:Voila! Crab Apple Syrup:

After I did more research I found out that I did every single thing they say not to do or else your jelly might not jell. Oh well. It looks beautiful! This was my very first canning experience, too, and I must say, I had a good time! I definitely learned some things not to do next time. If I care I think I can open some of the jars and fix the 'jelly', cook it some more, maybe get it to jell, and re-can it. We'll see. I might just like the syrup.

We also made Sourdough biscuits from the Little House Cookbook. We were hoping to have some jelly to go on them, but oh well. They were good! Notice the two biscuits in the front, one is Anna's and one is Josie's, they had fun forming them. We cooked some of them in the skillet and baked some, both ways were delicious. I would say we've kept ourselves busy the last two days. Good busy! Maybe tomorrow we'll just relax and play in our pool all day. Yes, we have a new pool, Jack and Caroline! More on that to come. But for now, I'm going to bed.

Carrots

Of the fun, two-legged variety, eaten dipped in yogurt as a companion to some scrumdidilyumptious pizza the girls helped me make. You probably can't tell in this picture but each of the girls made their own mini pizza. That was the afternoon's excitement, carrots and pizza (quite long carrots, too. Good job, Mitch, on improving the soil. We've never had such long carrots before!)Even Ruthie enjoyed hers:Here's that cutie pie again:

Garden Update and Wonders of Nature

It has been a while since we posted about our garden, so we figured it was time again, especially with the way everything has taken off in the last couple of weeks. You'll have to indulge us as we share our pictures from today. They were taken in the middle of a hot afternoon, so some of the plants were a little wilty, but you can get the idea. First, though, here is a picture of an interesting beetle that hung out on our screen door overnight and half of the next day. Anna and Josie thought it was pretty cool. It actually hissed at us whenever we came near. I don't know if you can tell from the photo, but it is about an inch-and-a-half long.

Now to the garden. It may just look like a crazy mass of random plants, but there actually is an intentional order to it (and some intentional wildness). The large plants in the background are kale that we are hoping to get seed from. We planted these plants last year. The seed came from Katie's grandmother, Ginya, in 2002. We are almost out of the seed, and it is nearing the end of its viability, so we wanted to get some more seed. We are not sure what the variety is, but we have never found it anywhere else. The seed pods are just about mature, so we will probably pick them this week. We are anxious to see if the seed is relatively pure. In the foreground is some of the same kale planted this spring. It has already yielded copious amounts (just look further down the page). There are also orange calendula flowers, a sage plant on the front corner, and bunching onions around the border.


This is the same corner of the garden. Toward the top of the picture, tucked in under the kale are beets and swiss chard. The chard will be happy to see the big kale plants go soon.

This is a picture from the other side. In the front corner is some dill. Calendula, beets and cayenne pepper are behind that. The green and purple patch in the middle is our salad mix. There are about five or six different varieties of lettuce growing together. One benefit of having a cool early summer is that we have had an abundance of salad greens. We cut from this patch at least once a week and have more than enough salad. Now that the weather has warmed up, I expect each cutting to be the last and that the lettuce will bolt or turn bitter with the heat, but we harvested yet again today, and it was still just as tasty. When the lettuce does bolt, I plan to leave it so that we can gather seed from it to have our own seed for salad mix next year.

The green mass in the middle of this picture is carrots (more on those later). The plants with white flowers sort of growing over the top of them are arugula. This is arugula grown from our own seed that we grew last year. Now it has gone to seed, and we are almost ready to collect the seed from it for next year. To the right, it is hard to tell, but there are six varieties of peppers, some of which are setting on pretty well, though the plants are a bit scraggly. We need to get some more compost on this area. The peppers are planted amongst another variety of bunching onions. In the front right corner is the mint that we try to keep contained to this small corner.

A close up of some of our peppers.

Our tomato jungle! There are seven varieties of tomatoes growing here. I think the plants all grew about two feet in the last week. With our cool early summer, they are a bit behind, but they are now loaded with blossoms, and have a fair amount of fruit setting on. We are still hoping for a good harvest.



The tomatoes are quite a bit taller than Josie. She will still be able to reach the cherry tomatoes (2 types) that grow right by the path. We can hardly wait. Tucked in around the tomatoes are numerous basil plants, some thyme, and on the far side chives, oregano and garlic chives.

Some cosmos. The seedlings were given to us by a neighboring gardener. They were coming up quite prolifically in her plot, they were self-seeding from last year's plants.

I didn't realize that eggplant blossoms were so beautiful. We have three plants tucked in around the tomatoes. They are looking good right now as long as they don't completely get crowded out by the tomatoes. (If they do . . . I'd rather eat the tomatoes anyway.)

And we can't forget the Three Sisters garden! (The three sisters are corn, beans and squash.)The corn was a little slow getting started (I think again due to the cool early summer). The beans however are doing great. They are Mexican red beans. We grew them last year in a small spot just outside our door. They produced about a pound of dried beans, and we saved enough to plant this 100 sq. ft. area. It is looking like we will have quite a large harvest. It is tough to see the squash in this picture, but it is coming along nicely also after a slow start. I think we will have zucchini to eat next week (a green and a gold variety). We also have cucumbers (2 varieties), three varieties of winter squash and pie pumpkins. In the middle, Anna is standing in her sunflower house. The sunflowers haven't taken off quite like we had hoped but the idea is that as they grow up, morning glories planted in between them climb up and form the walls. It is starting to come along, and Anna had fun playing in it today.


Here is Anna standing by her "fireplace." The largest sunflower was her fireplace where she was frying corn and strawberries. In the foreground is one of our zucchinis.

Soon after we came in from the garden Anna started calling for me to come. She spotted this deer walking through the courtyard. It is not often we see deer in the courtyard. Foxes and raccoons are much more common (not to mention squirrels). This one seemed quite content to hang out for a while, though. That's okay with me as long as it stays out of the garden.

And now for today's harvest:

I was really excited when I pulled these carrots out today. We have never had much luck growing carrots. We will get big green tops that seem to indicate healthy plants, and even the tops of the roots seem big and fat, but then we go to pull them out and they are only about two inches long or forked in three for four directions. So I was pretty excited to harvest these first carrots of the year. My experience with carrots has shown me that a lot has to do with the soil texture. It has to be loose. So getting carrots so much better this year than last indicates that we have done a lot to improve our soil texture in just one year. And 'growing the soil' is my favorite part of gardening.

Some of the swiss chard we ate with dinner tonight.


Some of the bunching onions which went in our Indian lentils and rice.



We harvest this much kale at least once a week. This will be used for tomorrow's dinner.

Our friends Darren and Ruth and their daughter Alex came over for dinner, so it was joy to get to share from the bounty of our garden with them. We had Indian lentils and rice that used onions and mint from our garden, sauteed chard and salad greens with shredded carrot. That's when it is really fun and fulfilling-- growing good food then sharing it with others

We even had a little flower arrangement for a center piece. Calendula, cosmos, mint and cilantro flowers.

And one more picture of Anna at the end of the evening as she decided to decorate her hat with clothes pins. (She's wearing the dress that Mitch made her for Christmas this year. Josie has a matching one. He sewed them without even using a pattern. Quite impressive, really. )