Busy Hands Homestead

All of the sudden time has slowed down. The month has been a whirlwind: meetings, birthdays, kiln firings and school outings. Ideas for blog posts scratched on scraps of papers, just to be piled up while we go on to the next thing. These are the matching journals I stamped for Ivory and Adam as his 30th birthday gift.  Last fall I started having Ivory draw a picture of her day for Adam on those days that he doesn't come home from work.  This way they can share their days with each other even when they don't see one another. This is the double layer meat cake I made for Adam's birthday party.  Two layers of meat loaf, a layer of bacon in between and the entire thing is iced with mashed potato "frosting" all topped off with sauteed onions and mushrooms.   This is the bright white glow of the Anagama Kiln firing. In a few more days, we get to unbrick the door and unload shelf after shelf of transformed clay.  This is the...

The remainder of our spring break flew by in a flash.  A friend, her two, my two and I spontaneously packed a picnic and drove out to our new favorite "hiking spot" in anticipation of the coming cold front.  The remnants of last years floods, vast scoured stretches of ground and mounds of drift wood, are perfect for easy fort building.  We built a fort a few weeks ago, but when we returned it was flattened.  The children were not deterred.   They simply picked up the pieces and put them back together in a new arrangement.  The clouds loomed on the horizon, but were slow to arrive and we soaked in the sunshine, wishing that we had worn lighter coats.  \ The cold front did arrive and we woke to blowing snow.  Ivory and Sylvan and I piled into the car to meet up with another friend and her son who where staying outside of town a bit.  I managed to get us hopelessly lost, knocking on the wrong yellow house with a red door, and finally af...

Three large, loud shapes suddenly crested the ridge above us. I was crouched down, hugging onto Sylvan, who since our nursing break a little farther down the mountain, insisted on toddling along behind his sister up the path. She, stopping to inspect the tiny white flowers that carpeted the ground announcing that spring really is present in our valley, he to pick up one rock after the other, clutching awkwardly onto three and trying to sneak one into his mouth.  I had been expecting a swift, dainty helicopter on it's way to the hospital, not the lumbering, giant, dark shapes of the Chinook helicopters. Against all common sense, my instinct was to hold onto my kids and the thought crossed my mind that there is absolutely nowhere to hide on the barren hillside; just few and far in between trees, mostly dead grasses and the new sprouting green still hugging the ground.  I laughed it off as they passed right above, and we turned to watch them gr...

It is Tuesday. Both Sylvan and Ivory are snoozing away upstairs.  Sylvan is curled up in his crib and Ivory is stretched out on my side of the bed.  The flicker keeps landing on our roof - ting - his loud call echos down the flue followed in quick succession by his hammering on the chimney cap  The first time I heard him I thought our house was going to explode, but no, nothing is wrong with our furnace.  It is simply spring time in Missoula. I was clueless as to why this was happening until it was explained to me on Pea Green Boat, a wonderful local NPR show for children.  The flicker is using our chimney cap to amplify his sound - thereby laying claim to a larger territory.  Ivory has taken to calling him: "Our friend". I just hope he doesn't wake up the kids. Our spring break, so far, has been an enjoyable one. We visited the kids - three little goats - that were only two days old.  The smallest one, still a little wobbly on his legs whi...