Together...

I have many things to share ...but right now Hubby is home with his family for the week. February vacation is a winter tradition in Maine Schools so my husband /teacher is home.Yipee! We will be together as a family this week and I will be back by the end of the week with stories of Maple syrup, sheep stories and an Independence Days review. Till then we will be painting, hiking, boiling sap and enjoying our time together

Enjoy your week and I'll be back on Thursday...

Peace, Karin

In the mail this week.

So I've been touting the joys of Paperback Book Swap. and I just had to share this AWESOME book that came in the mail this week. Okay, maybe just awesome to me but I thought the knitters out there would find this cool.

Some of the patterns are very utilitarian and will not need any updates.
Others could use just a little less fringe

And others well, they are just awesome. I've been thinking of making myself a pair of knee socks, or stockings but I saw these and thought these would keep me warm, and I can still wear a skirt in winter.

I've got to go for a walk this morning and will have the food post later today.

I did it all by myself...

"I did it all by myself." This has been the phrase most often used in our house today. When he gets the buttons through the holes; when he gets his socks on the right feet; when he puts his pants on.

Is it really my place to tell him he got them on backwards? For now, I will let him revel in his glory.

A Two-fer: One small change and food Friday but really Monday

Well, I am into the first week of my February One Small Change. For this month, I am trying to have my propane oven do double duty. This part of the challenge has been a little more challenging. Last Tuesday, I made bread and my intention was to make a quick bread that could share the oven. But I didn't get the bread started until later in the day and by the time the bread was on it's second rising, I was in the middle of making dinner and well...you know how it goes...the phone rings, the wee one has his witching hour and the best laid plans of moms and bakers ...

But as the week went on I was able to think about this and plan a little better. I made a curried squash soup this week. I steamed the squash in my dutch oven all day on the wood stove so that it was ready to puree when I was making dinner. I made some apple bread this weekend and made a double batch. I made a double batch of bread yesterday. While the bread was baking I threw 4 potatoes in there to bake. Teen cooks one meal a week and his favorite recipe right now is twice baked potatoes; so they will be pre-baked and make his prep time halved.

As for a promised menu from the week, I wasn't very diligent with keeping track of it all so I will give you a run down for the weekend and then share some more from this week on Friday.

Friday dinner: Roasted local chicken, mashed potatoes and broccoli

Saturday breakfast: Toast with homemade jam, yogurt with frozen berries

Lunch: leftover squash soup and left over broccoli.

Dinner: Chicken enchiladas with garlic, corn, rhubarb salsa and shredded local carrots.

Sunday breakfast: Apple bread and eggs.

Lunch: grilled cheese sandwiches and applesauce.

Dinner: Chicken soup with dehydrated zucchini, pureed carrot, pureed tomato, local mushrooms, garlic, dill, and frozen green beans. Bread and Cheese.

I also canned 2 quarts of chicken stock for later use using Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions recipe where she adds lemon juice ( or vinegar) to help draw out all those healthy minerals from the bones.

This coming week I would like to share some of my favorite low-tech kitchen tools and I will have another menu list from this coming week.

I also would like to share the rug I was crocheting this weekend. Worked up in record time! A little obsession is a good thing right? I am very pleased with it and think I will definitely make another but it is tough work on the hands so I will return to some finer knitting.

On a quiet Sunday morning

I admit to be a little self indulgent this morning. I slept til' 8 this morning while Dad and the little boy sat at the kitchen table playing with trucks and homemade playdough. When I arose I thought I could really use some quiet, Sunday morning handwork.

The boys went off to church and I sat with some music and a little luscious, brilliant, recycled handwork. Joyful, Joyful...

These colors collected randomly from old jersey sheets and scrap jersey fabric just speak Spring to me. I had originally collected some grays and faded blues to go with it but this rug just wants to be bright. I think it will go in our bedroom and I will save the other fabrics for a kitchen rug where chance food stains won't fade its cheerfulness. Although I may have some issues with walking on something so pretty;)

This and That

Thrift store score! 2 dozen canning jars for 4.00! Okay, I am easily pleased with a canning jar deal. Simple woman. Simple Pleasures;)

A basket of thrifted jersey sheets and fabric. Soon to be a rug.
Paperback Books swapped and gracing my mailbox this week. We love Duck:)
Gratuitous kitty photo of Lily cat.

Traveling through space and time...

Some days I feel like a visitor from another planet.

I come to this strange place from the planet Frugalturnia. I traveled to this place in my second hand space suit found at the planet of Goodwill. My mode of transportation was in a spaceship pool and we all traveled in the slow lane. Our spaceship gets 40,ooo light years to one ounce of renewable shoe leather.

Where I come from we speak in a language of use it up, wear it out, make do or do without. It is a hard language to translate in this place of APR financing, plastic money and robotic hamsters.

My home planet is verdant with gardens and everyone has enough and no more than that. So you can imagine my surprise ,as I coasted over your planet, to see hunger, strife, great abundance and gluttony. This is not to say that we don't struggle with our own challenges. Sometimes we can't always have what we want, sometimes we have desires that can not be met immediately or if ever. But when we have this itch, we scratch it with a walk through our gardens or gather with friends and family and share a meal.

We have no gods such as your Credit Card , no temples such as your malls, no priests such as your Bankers. We have our spades and hoes, we have our rich soil, we have our family, we have music.

When I landed on this planet and shared stories of my home, I received many strange looks, like I had a third eye on my forehead. Few, tried to understand the allure of fresh food grown with your own hand, when there was so many boxes, and jars filled with GMO foods and this odd additive high fructose corn syrup. Some how the joy of making something with your own lands was lost in translation and folks thought I was asking where the nearest big box store was.

I am homesick and will wait at this spaceship stop for the next commuter rocket; grateful to be home in my house in the woods, where I will run straight to my garden and watch a ladybug climb a sunflower petal.