Busy Hands Homestead

Ivory is four.   She is somewhere in the nebulous realm of  needing an afternoon nap and stubbornly staying awake.  By four thirty or five in the afternoon, she acts like a monster.  She is a block throwing, screaming, crying, supper tired child which no reasonable speaking, pleading, bargaining, or threatening seams curtail.  And then I act like a monster.  Night time books are taken away, toys are confiscated and, yes, I find myself screaming.  We both hit a wall and the only place to go is to bed, but we still have to make it through dinner and picking up toys and getting ready for bed before that can be realized. So in the footsteps of my mother (who made beautiful water color and pen and ink chore charts for my siblings and I)  and many other mothers I have created my version of a chore chart.  Here is my attempt at a solution:   Chores: The Game Please excuse the slightly bl...

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.   It is even better than Christmas.  Why?  Well, it has all those things I love about Christmas (good food and family) and none of the things that makes Christmas stressful (the shopping and gift giving).  Thanksgiving has always been this big family event where we bustled around in the kitchen for days rolling and stirring and baking and then all this food is brought fourth and set onto a beautifully decorated table (or two).  People could be counted on for certain dishes.  I would make sweet potato casserole, my mom cardamon bread, Linda and Gigi would bring this cranberry salad I yearn for, my grandmother her Swedish fruit compote , etc...   and then we would all sit together and eat and laugh and go on a walk through the neighborhood and start all over again.   The last few years, we have spent Thanksgiving with friends and neighbors , sharing food and laughs and listening to a few folks jam whil...

In the wake of the great sickness , I frantically glazed all of my plates, cups, and bowls.  Each item was then carefully wadded onto it's spot on the kiln shelf. Each shelf carefully balanced on the one before.  By the time we lined up the rows up bricks to close up the door and spackled shut all of the cracks our hands were freezing and it was close to one in the morning. Many hours later we noted with pride no flames escaping from the top of the arch.  Our firing was consistent and even.   Firing Shedule 12:45 am mudded door and started candling, with peeps and damper open 8:00 am  closed peeps, shut damper half way and turned up gas a bump (1/8th of an inch or so) and adjusted the blowers 11:00 am checked on kiln 11:35 am turned up gas slightly and closed damper to 2" 1:00 pm cone 012 down, strong reduction, turned up W burner slightly  2:45 pm turned up gas a bump, damper mostly open, cone 012 com...

Time has been getting away from me.  The days jam packed with little happenings that it seems like I have hardly had a moment to collect my thoughts, much less, to put them into writing. So I will back track a few weeks. HUNTING - a success.  Adam brought home a deer. and then THE SICKNESS - we ALL got sick. Almost two weeks ago, Sylvan climbed into bed next to me, whimpered tucked his hands into my shirt, fell asleep and then proceeded to puke all over me... changed sheets..  and again..  changed sheets...  and -  then he and I got up.  We only have three sets of sheets for our bed.  So, at four in the morning, he and I started a load of laundry and curled up on the sofa to wait for the rest of the family to get up.  I wrapped my body around his, frustrated by my inability to make him feel better.  The one thing that I can always count on to make him feel better, nursing, made him violently ill and my refusal to do so made h...

Translation: Please leave me some candy. (heart) Ivory Ivory, Thank you for the candy and I hope you like what I left for you and your brother.  I got your note and I left you some extra pieces for when you're extra good. See you next year,                          (pumpkin head) In our house there is no Santa Clause, no Easter Bunny, and as of now, no Tooth Fairy visits...  I have a general dislike of lying to children, but in spite of our attempt at honesty there is the Great Pumpkin that comes around once a year. Never heard of the Great Pumpkin?  Well, I borrowed the idea of him from a friend who enlightened me to the existence of such a being last year.  The Great Pumpkin visits children's houses after Halloween and trades all (or most of) that candy for a useful item or a toy.   When the children get older, I hope that we can simply give them th...

Ivory practically jumped into bed last night.  Gone were the tears that had been running down her face, and the numbing ear drops I carefully dripped into her ears after dinner must have been working.  Slipping smoothly under the covers of my bed she grinned at me singing: "Sleep over, Sleep over, it's like a sleep over.  But it's not a sleep over.  It is just laying down in Mama's bed." Adam had driven off just a few minutes earlier to spend the night with his rifle, in spite the icy Montana air, on the side of a mountain alone in a wall tent. I had moved two giant pots filled with forty pounds of halved and cooked apples into our unheated back room to become apple sauce in the morning and decided to cuddle up with Sylvan and Ivory and call it a night.  When Sylvan nudged me awake to nurse I glanced at the clock - almost six in the morning - I don't remember a time that I have slept for that long with out interruption   "Seven thirty ...