Busy Hands Homestead

Life has been busy - incredibly busy.  In between running errands, loading kilns and my monthly coop shift I sat down for a few minutes to make ornaments with Ivory and Sylvan.  These are quick.  They are simple enough even for Sylvan to remain engaged through out the duration of the craft.  Materials: assorted colors of felt pieces ribbon thread sewing needle scissors How To: I ask the kids to choose their colors and then I cut the shapes for them: 1 set of leaves (or more if desired), 2 flowers, 2 stars and 2 small circles. The flowers, stars and circles are cut while holding two sheets of felt together Make a loop out of ribbon and tack the open end together String the large flower, the star and the small circle onto the needle (Sylvan can do this with assistance, Ivory on her own) Scrunch them down against the loop and return the needle to the center through the flower, tacking the stack of felt to the loop String the remai...

As I wrap blue yarn with hints of pink and green and purple around my knitting needle and pull one stitch through the other an ocean grows. The sky is dark and the water is reflecting the stars, the moon, the whole universe. There are shimmers of light on gentle ocean swells. The swells rising and falling and swirling. Cradled in the middle of it all is a baby. A tiny speck in the vastness of everything - gently rocked, safe and snug and warm. Materials: 3 Skeins Lion Brand Yarns Wool-Ease, Blue Mist    (the gauge listed on label is 18 stitches by 24 rows to make a 4" square on size 8 needles) size 10 needles short note on yarn choice: I chose this yarn because it is machine washable and dryable and contains 20% wool.  I prefer to work with yarns that are composed of natural fibers, but since this is a gift for a young mom and her first child I figured that utility, affordability and appearance was allowed to over ride my yarn snobbery. (And my favori...

Stitch by stitch the blue yarn is becoming a blanket.  It covers my lap, warm and soft. We have had a lazy Saturday and a slow Sunday. The kiddos are on a train ride to California.  Every chair in the house in a straight line.  Lamb and Tiger, doll and bear, Ivory and Sylvan passengers in one giant adventure. Sylvan drives. Ivory serves tea. Ivory drives. Sylvan is the caboose. I knit. I dream. I observe. I think. I remember. I picture myself crouched down, peering into Ivory's face, my arms wrapped around a tiny Sylvan and scolding her: "When someone tells you that your hair is pretty, you say thank you.  When somebody says Hi to you, you say hi back.  You are being rude when you just ignore people." She looks back at me with tears in her eyes: " But Mama, I'm shy." I was exasperated.  I couldn't imagine that my little girl who seems to have no problem approaching strangers, dominating other mother's laps and leading gangs of child...

I am face down on the floor in child's pose, inches away from the furnace warm air blowing over my body, tears pooling on the floor. Adam took Ivory to the bus stop.   Sylvan is playing.  I am crying.   I have been crying and crying and crying.  I got the day wrong on which I was to deliver the salad to the staff lounge at Ivory's school and it was the last tiny little snow flake to land on a mountain of snow and set off an avalanche.  It is rushing down and nothing will stop the force of gravity until it reaches the valley floor.  I will be the first to admit this is one part hormones mixed in with a million other things:  The feeling of failure that has been building for months.  The feeling that I am okay at many things but not great at anything and not being able to figure out at which skill I am supposed to excel.  The years of sleepless nights.  My constant battle against the natural state of the universe -...

I don't consider myself to be an experienced gardener.   Every year is new and every year new lessons are learned.  This year cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts and Jerusalem artichokes were new additions to my garden.   The cabbage needed more sun.  The broccoli provided us with a nice dense head of green followed with crisp little side shoots for the rest of the growing season.  The Brussels sprouts resulted in cheers when I served them to my kids.  And the Jerusalem artichokes - well they did great, but dominated the sad row of tomatoes I planted next to them.  While the sturdy stalks of the sunflowers reached preposterous heights, the tomatoes barely survived.   I know now to not plant anything close to these vigorous plants.  Rather than having the abundant harvest of tomatoes I had hoped for, beautiful fall bouquets brightened up our living space.  After a few light freezes, a serious cold snap was p...

of Maple Leaves A cold front blew the golden leaves off of the trees.   The branches of the maple trees dark against the sky.  The branches of other maple trees are bare against the sky.   Our maple is a silver maple.  (A lesser maple.) Its leaves yellowing, curling, most still clinging to the branches and some still stubbornly green.   What leaves have fallen are curled, mixed with sticks, not the sort of leaves that beg to be piled and jumped into.  So we rake the golden drifts that have blown into our drive way from across the street, down the alley, all across our neighborhood and pile then in our yard.  Ivory and Sylvan laugh and shriek and jump into the pile and toss leaves into the air. They run back and forth bringing more leaves by the arm full, the wagon full, balanced on the rakes. Their cheeks flush and eyes shine.  I try to remember the last time I heard this much laughter and marvel at the simplicity of...

Ivory threaded the needle up and down through the button holes.  Tacking down the tulle, sandwiched between the button and a layer of sparkling felt.   I stitched the whole thing to hair clips.  There they are:  We are ready to go to celebrate a birthday!

This took me 10 months to finish... and it is all wrong - wrong yarn, wrong gauge, wrong size. I knew it was all wrong just a few rows into the project. I finished it anyway. I learned new skills. Next time I attempt this, I will splurge for nice yarn, the correct gauge and make two that are a reasonable size. Now that I know what I am doing. This one I am giving to a friend to use as a display for toys in a shop window.

"Mama! Painted trees!" I glance back at Sylvan in my rear view mirror and then back out of the windshield to try and decipher what he is telling me.  The car smells of apples. "Painted Trees! He repeats his phrase until my eyes rest on a line of small red Norway maples that line the road leading into a yet undeveloped development. Oh.  Painted trees. Yes, they are beautiful. This is the first autumn that Sylvan is really taking in.  He wades through the dunes of yellow maple leaves to pick up they few red ones and hand them to me. "Painted Leaves." Ivory begs daily, reminds me constantly: "Mama you promised that we could make Halloween decorations."   "Today. Yesterday. Tomorrow.  Before dinner. After dinner. After School. Now!!!!!!!!" I know I promised. I sigh. I feel guilty. I say things like: "We have to make food for your dad first." or "It is too late." or "later." or simply "oh, Ivor...

Our house looks pretty much like it always has. A drab white exterior, peeling paint on the windows and trim. Over a year of home ownership has passed and we are the only ones that know that things are changing ever so slowly. It is a constant balance of doing those things that need to be done and doing projects that are temporary but increase the immediate functionality of our house . While Adam had in his possession a borrowed sawzall, which he was using to cut through the old steal sewer plumbing under the house, I casually suggested that this might be the perfect time to cut away the wall of our closet. The opening into our bedroom closet was less than twenty inches and those clothes that hung in a neat row in it's confines simply stayed hanging.  It was too much of a pain to retrieve anything. The ceiling panel was a mysterious few inches lower than the rest of the ceiling and I had long decided it all had to go. The wall went, the ceiling panel went, the old layer of f...

Do I have a stopping point?  An end goal?  I can't remember any more.  Six quart jars of Amarito Pears line the back of my kitchen counter and six more are ready to go.  I am out of shelf space. The extra shelves Adam hung in our kitchen are filled to capacity.   I am stuck between projects. The things on my list are forever long. I have moments of panic when I remember some thing that I need to do and have not yet done. With only a box and a half of pears sitting in the back room, I feel that I can finally take a moment to sit down - reflect - and recall the sequence of the season that is now filling the kitchen shelves. June  6 - 1/2 pints of Rhubarb Orange Jam             I opened the first jar two days ago - It is fantastic! 3 pints of Pickled Baby Garlic July  5 - 1/2 pints Strawberry Rhubarb Jam 6 - 1/2 pints Cherry Jam with Apple as Pectin 6 - 1/2 pints Cherry Jam (with Palimosa Pectin) ...

I passed from one decade of life into the next. Cups clanked, water boiled, voices volleyed and I stared up at the dome of the tent above me. I pulled Sylvan closer. My little snuggle bug. My last baby - who hardly is confined within the parameters of a baby anymore. Ivory slept all night in her own tent. Her zippered flap just a few feet from mine. I smelled coffee - breathed deeply:  Life is good. I shimmied out from under the covers and crawled out of the tent. Loons raced across the lake. We were camping with friends and it just happened to be my birthday. After rounds of breakfast, adult canoe rides, observing never ending dizzying games of tag all the families piled into cars and set out on their respective adventures. We picked up a handful of national forest flyers, a forest service map and we huddled over the lines in the front of our car and picked a spot on the map - Morrell Falls - That is where we will go.  We picked huckleberries on the w...