Busy Hands Homestead

     I pulled my nice set of prismacolor pencils out of their hiding place, stuck a few pieces of paper in a book and put it all into my purse waiting for an opportunity to sit alone and finish Adam's batch of home brew.      Every beer needs a label.      I was hoping for the magical double nap that would allow me to finish the sketch I had started a few days ago.  I loaded the kids into the stroller and set off.  The double nap remained illusive.  After walking for a hour and detouring to the Children's Museum for a few more hours, I finally called Adam to come get the two of them and give me the chance to, well, do what I needed to do.      I almost forgot that I like to draw.        After much deliberation and a few starts I decided to call the beer Break of Day IPA.  The morning star is still bright in the sky, but the dark of night is fading away and a track of hoof prints ...

      Before we had children, we managed to fit both of our families into our Christmas routine: Christmas eve with his folks, Christmas morning with mine. The first Christmas we had Ivory, I refused to drive anywhere, and everyone came to us. The second Christmas we lived thousands of miles away from any family and for the very fist time we were on our own Christmas morning. We are about to celebrate our third Christmas away from our families and there are a few traditions that we have brought with us and some that we are cultivating on our own.      Adam plays a Christmas eve morning game of phone tag with parents, siblings, aunts and cousins that I simply roll my eyes at, and I bake a giant wreath of cardamon bread that was a staple during my childhood holidays. Every Christmas since Ivory was born, we have woken to the smell of cinnamon and apples and then have opened presents with steaming cup of coffee and a bowls of Christ...

Last year, we woke to a winter wonderland on Thanksgiving morning, bundled up and followed converging sled tracks to the site of what will hopefully become a longstanding neighborhood tradition: pie breakfast.  Slices of sweet and savory pies, mimosas and fresh espressos disappeared as quickly as the time and we all had to rush home to cook for dinner. This year, we woke with equal excitement and trotted across the still bare ground to the second pie breakfast and our second thanksgiving far from home. Cradled in my arms was a pie baked on the inspiration of a faint child hood memory. Shortly after we moved to the United States, my grandmother took me to the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I sat across from her scanning the menu for a compilation of words that I recognized, trying desperately not to let her know that most of what was written was almost illegible to me. There, I spotted something I knew:  Brie. And that was the dish...

Five years ago I purchased two giant boxes, one silver the other red, of those glass globe tree decorations during an after Christmas sale. They are ridiculously bulky boxes that I have lunged around move after move all the way across the country. This obvious reminder of my pre-baby days, combined with an array of ribbons, fronds of beads (for a lack of a better description) and bouquets of paper poinsettia flowers adorned a tree the next Christmas that Martha Stewart herself would have been proud of. Even though it was the first time I used those decorations I was already aware of the folly of my choice as my baby bump was steadily growing underneath my clothing. “Next year”, I thought, “ I will have a six month old.” This year I will have a three year old and ten month old at Christmas time. A ten month old that is much more into everything than his older sister was. This year, I am leaving those silly red and silver globes in their bulky boxes and making my own out of p...

Yesterday afternoon Ivory and I rolled up our sleeves to scoop whole wheat flour and yeast. It seems like forever since the two of us have tackled a project together. She is now going to school in the mornings and on her days off, I have been sending her and Adam out to play together so that I can spend a few hours behind the sewing machine without distraction. The ground is covered with snow, Adam has taken the car to go hunting for the weekend and Sylvan was asleep, so rather than Ivory's usual lunch and nap routine, I decided that she and I needed to bake ourselves a treat: Pretzels. She has been begging for pretzels, and while I know she means the small crunchy kind that comes out of a puffed up bag, I thought that this might just do the trick. I dug through my cook books, surprised that my giant bread book lacked the word pretzel in the index and finally stumbled on a super simple recipe tucked in the pages of the information packed book Super Baby Food by Ruth Y...

     The ground was covered with a ever so thin layer of snow a few mornings ago.  The snow in the yard melted away, but the snow on the mountains stayed.  The dog water and the chicken water regularly freeze at night, and the leaves of kale and Swiss chard hang dark green and limp from the stalks.  The chill in the air contains a hint of magic.      It is the time of the year where something comes from nothing.     There are many childhood Christmases that I remember. I remember cardamon bread baked in a wood stove, pajamas, Christmas dresses, candles clipped to the branches of our tree, hotel rooms and having strep throat on Christmas - again. A few Christmases I remember for the presents and one in particular. I must have been about five, my brother almost three and my mom very pregnant with my sister. I got a doll and a pram. My brother a hammering bench. Those might have been the only gifts we got that year,...

I spent the week indoors wedged in the tiny space between my sewing machine, cutting table and ironing board that I have carved out for myself in the living room. I finished apron after apron, day after day, when something just snapped. I found myself flailing, feeling like I was failing at everything. A body that just could not stretch anymore - give more hugs, more cuddles, to be suckled and needed, needed, always needed. My husband came home (finally) - sick - wanting hugs, cuddles and affirmation leaving me to feel like I was just failing at one more thing. My usual coffee offered no pick me up, no solace. Yoga was a momentary reprieve, a quiet space within the droves of self doubt. A space that vanished the moment I walked back into my house. Chopping vegetables, cooking dinner, which I usually find to be almost therapeutic did not calm me. Washing the dishes only created order on my counter and left me in the same chaotic state as before. The walls moved in. ...

The sun is shining. The air has a hint of briskness. The ash trees are a multitude of colors; purple, yellow, orange, red with a few stragglers still in the green of summer. It is sandals and sweater weather. I hear phantom dog tags and padding feet behind me everywhere. I am pushing the stroller, hoping desperately that the children will be lolled to sleep. It has been one of those days. After two hours of climbing in and out of bed, drinks of water and trips to the bathroom I finally tell Ivory to put on a pair of shoes and climb into the stroller in an attempt to save what little is left of my sanity. Sylvan drifts off first humming to himself, and I realize Ivory is slumbering as well when the hand clutching her pink leopard finally relaxes. I walk past the tent city that is rising up in front of our court house. The drum circle sneaks a little dance into my step and for the first time today I feel the dark cloud that has been hanging over my head lift ...

Everything is wet. The bright yellow, red and green leaves against the black branches have a psychedelic crispness. The grasses and shrubs brush against our legs and drops splash against us as we push our way along narrow paths winding their way along the river. It has been raining daily, and we piled into the car to check on one of our mushroom spots. We are looking for Shaggy Parasols. And we find – nothing. The pine needles lay wet and undisturbed. We wander on, looking for nothing in particular. We find a white, branching fungus growing like tiny candelabra out of a fallen cottonwood logs. We walk past giant shelf mushrooms, glistening a beautiful red. We see gray fungus reminiscent of coral. From one log to the next we have wandered farther and farther from the official walking trail.  The ferns are all flattened and suddenly we feel that we have strayed a bit too far.  I turn on one of the many forked paths and realize...

So, Tuesday night my thought process was a little like this: Adam is coming home a day early! Did I make enough dinner? SHIT. I am making beet soup for dinner. I grate, measure and stir and slide a baked zuccinni and egg side dish into the oven, and then am left standing there, staring at the soup simmering on the stove top. “Well, this will just have to do”, I think to myself. When Adam walks through the door I hug him, and say slightly apologetically: “We are having beet soup for dinner..... I didn't know you would be home early when I started it.... ?!?.” I usually try to have a slab of meat waiting for him and tonight's dinner is vegetarian through and through. AND IT IS BEETS! Adam – well – reluctantly admitted: “It was good – for a beet dish.” (Which I interpret as success.) Ivory liked it. How could she not? It was fuchsia colored after all. Sylvan loved it, clapping his hands excitedly between spoonfulls. And I, w...

I am in the kitchen canning the last few jars of apple sauce. As soon as my kitchen counter is wiped off, I am going to unload the trunk of my car. My trunk full of tomatoes turned into almost 10 quarts of spiced tomato sauce (think spaghetti or pizza) and 2 1/2 quarts of barbecue sauce. I cleaned my giant pots, stacked my jars and stored all my tools away.  I can't take anymore of this, unless, I find some delicious pears somewhere.  I would love to can a few pints of amaretto pears.  They are a family favorite.

   I pull out my soft scrub, fill up a bucket of water and scour the kitchen floor on my hands and knees. The mop just will not do an adequate job removing the craziness that remains of the last week and a half.  Yes, I have lived with this dirty floor for at least ten days.     I scrape a few stubborn tomato seeds of the floor. Tomatoes.  Red, orange, striped and juicy.  Hiding under leaves. Exploding in our mouths, on shirts and, well, on my floor.  They are squished into jars, to be opened on a dark winter night and add a bit of warmth an sunshine to our dinner plate.      I wipe the sticky streaks that stretch from my counter top to the stove.   Little missiles of juice that coat everything - my knife, my hands and the tops of my toes - as I cut open plum after plum.   They became a spicy plum sauce that is perfect with any kind of meat.  I canned twice the a...