Treasure Trove

Today, I exchanged some of the books on our shelf in the trailer that we won't need this upcoming winter for ones that will be useful for school, and also that are at Jude's reading level. He was very excited, because we did not have many chapter books in the house, and he has definitely moved past the level of a short picture book.

Two shelves of reading bliss for the voracious reader.

He was especially excited about the Chronicles of Narnia, Mary Poppins, Pirates of the Carribean and the Hardy Boys books. (Some of these he has read already: James and the Giant Peach, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Charlotte's Web. We did The BFG and Stuart Little as family reading.)


Not everything on these shelves is age-appropriate yet (Great Expectations, anyone?), but a lot of it will be just fine.

Of course, since I happened to find a Calvin and Hobbes book while I was digging around, guess which one the boys chose first?


Not that it matters. Reading is for having adventures, and Calvin will take him on just as many as Roald Dahl!

Have fun, wherever your adventures take you, my boys!

World Peace Through Beverages

Many of you have probably noticed the somewhat wistful little note in my sidebar.

Well, look what I got from my mom today:



Thanks, Mom. It's awesome. Not to mention, I could stop at least two wars a day with the amount of tea it can hold.

(Either that, or I'll never need to sleep again.)

"Indoor plumbing--it's gonna be big!"

Something has been afoot around here for a while. I have been turning ideas around in my little head, working on designs, yearning to start the creative business I pined after not so long ago. In reality, these ideas have been percolating since around December... but this week, I tipped over the edge of "I dunno" towards "Going for it!"

The thing that unbalanced me was a desire to help Jude in his money-earning endeavours, since he is so keen on getting his hamster. My real passion is designing clothing, which I will talk about more later--but I also need to earn a little extra income first to upgrade some of the equipment I have before really getting serious about that project.

So, for now, here is a little hint about what's been brewing around here:






I would love your opinions (constructive criticism) on both the photos and the product.

Look for the grand opening announcement of my new store soon!

Better a Brother Close By

"Mom, come outside!" came Jude's voice through the window screen. "We want to show you something!"

I stepped out the front door. And what a beautiful sight:


Noah was doing so well on Jude's bike that Jude decided to take the training wheels off of Noah's bike. He ran and grabbed the wrenches from the shed and set to work.


Time for another go! Noah did even better with his own bike! It's a little too small, instead of being a fair amount too big (which is how Jude's bike fit).



I'm proud of both of these boys--Noah, for learning how to ride a bike without training wheels, and Jude, for taking the initiative and helping his brother out in so many ways.

After Noah was tired of riding, Jude actually put the training wheels back on so Jabin could try riding a "big bike" instead of a tricycle, then took them off again when he was done.

You know, that kid can be pretty thoughtful when he wants to be. It makes him seem so "grown up."

I LOVE it!

(Do you love our "very redneck" rusty Seacan and yard piles in the background? Hee hee!)

Run With It

Yesterday morning, Jude announced rather "out-of-the-blue" that he wanted to get a pet lizard. Believe it or not, this didn't freak me out. However, I know enough about these pets to know that they are expensive and require a fair amount of space--a precious commodity around here.

However, I figured this was a good chance for Jude to learn a few different skills, so I said, "Okay. How about you do some research today to find out what kind of lizard you want, and how much it will cost."

So he did. He searched. He googled. He wikipediaed. He found informational videos. I showed him what the different parts of the pet information websites he found were for, so he could navigate them more efficiently. (Internet rule #2 laid down: Never click on any advertisements! #1 is: No searching the internet when Mom and Dad aren't around!)

Before long, he decided on a bearded dragon. He then spent the rest of the day finding out all he could about bearded dragons and how to take care of them. When he had to be off the computer so his brothers could have a turn, or so he could do things like eat or chores, his brain was still percolating on and regurgitating the things he had been reading about.

"Mom, bearded dragons only get up to twenty-four inches long!"

"Mom, did you know that bearded dragons come in red, green, yellow... ?" and on through the rainbow.

"Mom, bearded dragons eat crickets and dark green vegetables!"

Even when he found out that, after he saved up the $300 to buy the pet and all of the one-time expenditures to supply its needs, it would cost about $24 a WEEK to feed an adult Bearded Dragon, he was not deterred. Never mind that he hardly makes $24 in a year!

I reminded him what Dollar Bill says (a kids' character created by Dave Ramsey to help kids learn about handling money): "When you don't have enough money to buy something, you go to WORK!" He then started brainstorming about how to make money. Various schemes were presented, but the one he really latched onto for the first thing to try was a lemonade stand, set up on a hot day when the gun range (the entrance of which is a few hundred yards down the road from our driveway) was especially popular.

All along, I had been cautioning him that he was just exploring options, and he and I would need to discuss the whole thing with Daddy when he got home. I managed to hold him back from attacking Jason with the scheme until we were seated at the supper table.

Before long, Jason and I were able to introduce the idea of another, cheaper pet as a first pet option. One that doesn't live ten years, doesn't cost $300 to get started with, and costs a few dollars a week to maintain--a hamster.

The momentum didn't stop--he spent the remaining time he had before bed researching hamsters with Jason, and is looking forward excitedly to our trip to Grande Prairie in a few days, when I told him we would stop at Petland to check out prices. Also, today he bought lemons and chocolate chips to set up his lemonade-and-cookie stand this weekend. (Go, little entrepreneur, go!)

Once he gets an exciting idea in his head, he really gloms onto it and rolls with it. Obsessively, almost.

... I have no idea where he gets that from. *whistles and rolls eyes*

Squirrelling

The last two days have been "Food Days". That's what I call days that I spend almost entirely in my kitchen. Thankfully, I don't really need to do Food Days on a regular basis--most of the tasks that I need to do to pre-prep for upcoming meals (usually thinking up to three days out) can be done while I am preparing that evening's supper.

However, yesterday and today I have been doing preserves. Which, to me, is kind of a big deal.

When I was a child, I remember my parents having a vegetable garden until I was about nine. I did some weeding in it, but not tons, and then when they built a house, it ended up in the spot the garden had been. For various and sundry reasons, the gardening stopped at that point--right when I may have begun to benefit from the gardening knowledge I now feel lacking. (Thank goodness I have been able to still pick the brains of my parents at this point of my "farming" career, even if I lack hands-on experience.) However, I do have hazy memories of my mom doing one or two "canning" days when I was small, and all I remember is the heat and the mess and a lot of canned green beans (my least favourite way to consume them)--not really inspirational to try it myself. (Mom, did you ever make jam? I don't remember. I was just too little, I guess.)

My childhood friend Kristy's mom was amazing at canning. I remember seeing a few of her "canning days" too, and being all agog at the number of jars of preserves lining her counter tops as they cooled. Now Kristy carries on that tradition, and we usually get to benefit a little every winter from both her talent and her generosity.

I had never canned anything myself, however, until last summer.

There was a fantastic price on blueberries at one of the local grocery stores, so I went and picked up about four large containers. We like 'em fresh, but I figured I would also give blueberry jam a try. All I needed were some jars, lids, rings, pectin ("No-Sugar-Needed"), apple juice, honey, jar lifter, and a few dozen phone calls to my local canning-expert friend, Robin. The process turned out to be simpler than I thought, and I was so darn proud that I had made jam for my family.


Before the year was out, I had a stove-top canner, and had also preserved some pears and peaches in water, and made applesauce, rosehip jelly and peach chutney. Of all those preserves, we finally opened the last jar just last week--peach chutney to go with our lamb. I also gave some of our treasures away as gifts.

This time, I thought I'd branch out. Over the winter, I had purchased the book Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques, so I cracked the cover and tried the recipe for Sweet & Sour Dark Red Plums. This recipe takes 6 days to complete, because you re-boil the syrup every day for three days, then just let it sit for three days. (I confess, I skipped the three days of sitting and sealed the jars while they were hot. I hope that doesn't botch it up.) I also did my nectarines à la Fruit in Syrup, which uses reduced sugar and doesn't call for a final heat processing, preserving more of the nutrients in the fruit. There were several other interesting-looking recipes which I will be trying over the course of the summer and beyond.

I confess, though, that the one recipe I wanted to try which stumped me was the Uncooked Jelly recipe. It seemed to call for using the pulp instead of the juice, but it was difficult to tell with the wording. Also, the ONLY preservation and thickening agent used was sugar. The jars (I assume) were heat-processed to begin with, but there was no further processing, and other than being told to store it in a "cool, dry place" (which usually means a root cellar), there is no time given for how long they will be good for. All internet searches about uncooked jelly resulted in information saying they should be frozen or refrigerated and consumed within weeks. Sigh. So, I didn't use that one.

Other than that, the book has some really great ideas. It is actually a collection of recipes from the gardeners and farmers of Terre Vivante, France, so the amount of detail in each recipe varies somewhat. I highly recommend the book for anyone wanting to go with more "traditional" methods of preservation.

Other than the plums and nectarines, I now also have rhubarb chutney and peach jam lining my shelves. I just bought some more plums to make jam with today. I dunno--maybe I'm addicted! It is so fun knowing that we will be able to enjoy these treats throughout the long winter to come. And all with a lot less sugar or other preservatives than products I could buy in the store!

Now, all I need is a root cellar to keep everything in...

(still working on it)

Baby, Just Say "Yes"!

This might just be my new favourite video.

The fact that I've been trying to arrange a real "anniversary date" (which is now 1 1/2 months overdue) for two weeks is certainly helping.

I hope you enjoy it, too!

(Facebook viewers, you are going to have to "view original post" for this one--I'm not taking the time to repost, 'cause this girl needs SLEEP! Time to go snuggle up to Romeo.)

The Post That Shouldn't Have Been

This isn't what I was planning on posting about tonight.

I was planning on telling you about the fabulous day I had in Grande Prairie, choosing curriculum for next year, which I had an amazing brainwave about last night--it could be my most prepared (and fun) school year yet.

But that plan all changed when I drove into the yard and saw little chicken carcasses strewn hither and yon, and an almost-empty coop, relaying the sad tale of mayhem so recently enacted there.

There was a hole in the chicken wire on the side of my small chicken tractor--the one housing nearly 50 almost-two-month old chicks--most of which were destined for the freezer, but there were still five remaining dark brown leghorns which were to be our laying stock for this winter and beyond--a prolific laying breed, and an endangered species, to boot. None of the leghorns survived. In all, we only found nine live chicks, four of which were females which are now going to have to be saved for laying hens. That means that, between the five remaining meat stock and the two older roosters from my first batch that were heading for the table, we will have a total of seven birds in our freezer this winter--assuming these remaining birds survive that long.

I am still so upset I can barely type this. Such a waste of time, and money, and energy.

At this rate, Koda will be lucky if HE survives until winter.

Back to the Future

Last night, I started a book that has been sitting on my shelf, waiting patiently for me for several months, now. Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables by Mike and Nancy Bubel. (My bushels of potatoes and carrots and beets and onions are all doing very well in the garden at the moment, so I really need to start figuring out how I am going to keep them fresh this winter.)

At the beginning of the Preface, they had a quote that really spoke to me:

Slowly we are carving a new lifestyle. To some it might seem to be one that is looking backward, for it cherishes the homely, the rude, the unpackaged, the unmechanized, the careful. We do not think of it as a blind shutting out of any visions of the future, but rather, for us, the right way to face the future. The carving is not easy. It is often painful. But in it are the seeds of sanity, of joy.

-Mara Cary, Basic Baskets

That is what I feel like I am doing almost every day: re-learning old ways of doing things, so that the future is not a big, scary Place. If/when the oil runs out, if/when electricity becomes a much more precious commodity, if/when food is not trucked into my little Northern town every day, will our family survive? Will we be able to eat in February? And even in the meantime, how do I save money in the current economy, live frugally, be responsible?

The more I look, the more I see that the answer is actually found in renewing many economical traditions of our forefathers (and foremothers, too!) So I am learning to garden, although I still feel like I am forgetting something most of the time. I am learning to raise chickens, even though my heart breaks every time a predator or sickness takes one, and I really wonder how I will have the heart to butcher them in a few months. I am learning to preserve food without electricity. I am learning that the best peace of mind is in knowing that the One who made me has a plan, and He is still in control, even in what I think of as "uncertain times."

I am learning. And I am teaching my children.

That is the best insurance I can think of.

Mercy Rains Down

It's been raining here for the last week or so.


Not all the time, but enough. I know that in the southern part of the prairies, they are saying "Enough, Already!"



But I say, "Thank you."