Horizon Herbs

I haven't disappeared! This is an especially busy week for us. Not only is it Halloween, but today is also Lawrence's birthday. So, we are always busy with costumes, pumpkins, cake, special dinner.

I will quickly share a great website with you. When I was searching for a particular herbal something (I actually can't remember what it was now, but I think I was looking for how to prepare a remedy), I came across a seed supplier here in Oregon. They have hundreds of obscure and varied plants that will be fabulous for anyone who has an interest in growing their own herbal medicines. So, I would encourage you to look at Horizon Herbs this winter when you are planning your seed orders!

Spicy Sweet Potato, Coconut and Shrimp Soup

We've been getting sweet potatoes in our CSA share recently and I'm not much for a sweet potato casserole and roasted sweet potatoes can get old after awhile, so I went in search of sweet potato recipes. I found this recipe that got great reviews from users, but I wanted to add some shrimp to it and I also changed a few steps because some seemed unnecessary to me, so I will list the revised recipe below. I didn't get any pictures because it was devoured very quickly. We loved this because it is very similar to a soup we get at our local Thai restaurant.

• a couple tablespoons coconut oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 2" piece of ginger, peeled and minced
• 1 teaspoon red curry paste
• about 1 1/2 pounds of sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into about 1/2" cubes
• 2 teaspoons fish sauce
• 6 cups vegetable, fish or chicken stock
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 (15 ounce) can unsweetened coconut milk
• 1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 3 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

Heat oil in large soup pot or dutch oven. Add the onion and ginger; cook and stir until golden, about 10 minutes. Stir in the curry paste and stir for one minute. Add sweet potatoes, fish sauce, broth and salt. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer until sweet potatoes are tender.

Add coconut milk and let it come back up to a simmer. Add shrimp and cook until done. Stir in lemon juice and check seasonings.

Ladle into bowls and drizzle a bit of sesame oil into each bowl. Top with cilantro as desired.

*I've been making quite a few soups lately. Since we've started eating more seasonally, I can really appreciate the place that soups have in a culinary year. I wasn't a huge soup fan in the past, much to the shock and dismay of some friends.

The Hobby Lumberjack

Actually, it's not really accurate to say it's a hobby. It's more out of necessity. We simply don't have the money nor the inclination to pay the $975 that a local tree service would charge. This large pine is between our house and our neighbor's, but it's on our property. It has many issues. It's planted right along our fence. I don't know what the people who planted it or the people who put up our fence were thinking. I imagine the tree was growing before the fence was put up. At any rate, it's pushing against our chain-link fence and raising pickets on our neighbor's fence. It has always leaned to the south and after the wind storms of the past couple winters, it's trunk is changing. It's developing a knob that I believe is from stress of the tremendous force from the leaning weight of the tree. It has also developed cracks in the bark. Are they just superficial cracks? Who knows. What I do know is that the tree man who came out to give us the estimate (he also gave us an estimate about three years ago for this tree when he did some work on our large cedar [that blew down two years ago]), said he didn't think this tree would still be up!

My husband is almost an ultimate DIY'er. He would rather buy equipment and do it himself if there is any possible way. He's been eyeing both leaning trees in our yard for years. We have another pine that is also leaning.

He finally decided to tackle the one between the houses, because it seems more urgent. So, with his tall ladder, a couple saws, ropes and his fall protection gear he headed up into that tree for the first time a couple weeks ago. He has cut off about 20 feet of branches so far. A friend came out and helped this week so they could get some bigger, higher up branches down together.


It scares the heck out of me to see him up there in that tree and I sometimes wonder if he is a little too crazy for his own good. He's actually not, though. He has to climb structures and hang off of crazy narrow things when he works. Some people have said that he is fearless, but that's not it either. He is brave and determined. He is also very cautious. He uses his safety gear, always. He comes down when he is getting fatigued and he is mindful that he has a family dependent on him.

I don't know if we will have the tree all the way down without professional help or a man-lift at the very least. The three trunks that branch off will be the hardest, but at least it has a great amount of weight off of it.

Green Meme #1

Two memes in one week? Yes. I have to admit to having a soft spot for memes.* I always like to read other blogger's memes because it gives me a concise peak into certain aspects of themselves. It is a natural assumption that many of you will also like to read my memes, but that could be a false assumption.

I really like this one because it is a meme that is solely about being green and I'm kind of passionate about that!

I was tagged by Mon at Holistic Mama.

Guidelines:
1) Link to Green Meme Bloggers.
2) Link to whoever tagged you.
3) Include meme number.
4) Include these guidelines in your post.
5) Answer questions.
6) Tag 3 other green bloggers.

Green Meme #1

1) Name two motivations for being green?
I believe that we are to be good stewards of what we have, whether it be our earth and resources or our money. Being a good steward, to me, means that we use things wisely, don't waste and live as lightly as possible.

Living a greener lifestyle is great for one's health. You aren't exposed to so many chemicals, you will likely move your body more and eat a better diet.

2) Name 2 eco-UNfriendly items you refuse to give up?
Our family vehicle. I don't think that we live in a place or time that it is feasibly to give up our family vehicle. I would really like to have a smaller family vehicle, but we aren't in the position to get one right now.

Coffee. I think that coffee is the most frequently consumed luxury item that I indulge in. I drink it every day and that's a lot of travel and resources for a beverage.

3) Are you at peace with or do you feel guilty about number 2?
I'm at peace for the most part. Like I said, I would like to get a smaller vehicle in the future. I feel some guilt at the fact that I don't walk as much to local errands and I should get better about that.

I'm also at peace with my coffee consumption. I buy sustainably, shade grown coffee from a local purveyor. I buy green beans in bulk and roast myself, so that decreases the packaging and travel resources.

4) What are you willing to change but feel unable to/stuck with/unsure how to go about it?
I would really like to use our home's grey water, but I'm unsure how to retrofit a home to do it.

5) Do you know your carbon footprint for your home? If so, is it larger/smaller than your national average?
(http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/calculator/)
Yes, it is much smaller than the national average. According to the above calculator, our household carbon footprint is 39 tons of CO2 per year and the average US household of five is 130 tons of CO2 per year.

6) What's eco-frustrating and/or eco-fantastic about where you live?
The eco-fantastic thing about where I live is that we have a vibrant and growing local food movement. There are two CSA's in our smallish town and a raw cow dairy, several raw goat milk suppliers and many meat farmers. There are also lots of small farms that produce fruits and nuts and we have quite a few u-pick farms around. I wish that we had locally grown grains available. We also have a fairly moderate climate which means that things can grow all year round. There is definitely far fewer things that will grow in the winter, but some things do grow!

The eco-frustrating thing is that our local mode of transportation is geared towards vehicles. I would love to see more cyclists on the road and better accommodations for cyclists. I don't feel comfortable biking with my three children, which is why I am stuck walking or driving.

7) Do you eat local/organic/vegetarian/forage/grow your own?
Yes to all of the above. I try to eat local, organic first and foremost, but if that isn't an option I will generally opt for local over organic. I forage a bit, but not much. I do typically grow a good sized garden, but not this past year. I rely on my CSA share for the bulk of our produce. I buy all of our milk from a local raw source and all of our meat from a local source. I don't eat a vegetarian diet, because ultimately I feel better eating meat, we have excellent local sources and I think that it is a more sustainable diet to eat this way. If we didn't have access to local, pastured meat, I would opt for a vegetarian lifestyle, however.

8) What do you personally find the most challenging in being green?
I think the most challenging thing is that it generally requires more time and that is something that can be in short supply when there are so many things that one wants to do and so many things that one needs to do. Raising and homeschooling three children, running a business and a home already consume a lot of time.

9) Do you have a green confession?
I guess my biggest green confession is that my family vehicle is a big van which gets only about 16 mpg and we also have a large diesel truck for our business, but we do run bio-diesel in that one. Other than that, I can't think of anything. I may come back and edit this if I do remember something.

10) Do you have the support of family and/or friends?
I'm sure that there are the family and friends out there who think we do some weird things, but they keep that to themselves. Overall I would say that my friends and most of my family is very supportive. My husband and children are very willing to try new things and my two oldest children remind me to do things that are eco-friendly like not taking a bag at the store for a few items if I've forgotten my cloth one or to recycle something that they think I might not recycle. My extended family doesn't really live close-by, so it's hard to tell if somebody is really supportive when they don't experience my greenness in person for the most part. So, I guess I can say they are supportive of the theory of what I do! I am lucky to have many like-minded friends who inspire me in ways that I haven't thought of and make me feel great when I inspire them to do things they haven't though of doing.

I'm tagging:

Angeleen at Lucky Seven Cat Ranch because she just tagged me this week
Adriana because I'm interested to see her answers; I know she is green, but lives a very different lifestyle than me

Since I've already tagged some other people this week, I'm going to leave it at two.



*I will also admit to having a soft spot for quizzes and tests in general. Yes, I was one of those weird ones in school.

A Crisp Fall Day at the Farm

We are lucky, because we live in an area that has a vibrant and growing sustainable agricultural sector. We are even more lucky because we are friends with several of these farmers. And we are luckiest because we are good friends with the farmers at Growing Wild Farm.

Our homeschool group spend part of Tuesday hanging out at their farm and getting a sneak peek behind the scenes of a CSA (community supported agriculture). The weather was foggy when we got there, but then it burned off and we were treated to bright, shiny sun and weather warm enough to make us peel a layer or two of our clothing off.


Their peas got a bit frost damaged, but they were still tasty and there were lots of blossoms still on the plants.


The kids and parents got to pick peas and take some home if we wanted.




The fields were dazzlingly green and bursting with fecundity, even as fall has already arrived.
The tire swing is always a hit with any crowd of children.

Isabel even wrestled down a chicken. This one was a lucky one that was spared becoming a chicken dinner after Sheila and Andre tired of chicken processing one day!

Hopefully we will be visiting another local CSA on Sunday afternoon for a pumpkin patch open house. I'm going to try my hardest to remember it this time! We've missed the past few because I forgot.

Six Random Things

Angeleen tagged me and she is such a sweetie that I couldn't not do it.

Here are the rules:

1.Post the rules on your blog
2.Write 6 random things about yourself
3.Tag 6 people at the end of your post
4.If you are tagged, just do it, and pass the tag along!

So, without further ado.

1. My middle name is Marie. Pretty much every Lisa I've ever met in my life has the middle name Marie.

2. The few silver hairs that are appearing frighten me. I'm not exaggerating. They bother me immensely. Grey hair on others doesn't bother me at all, it's just my own that makes me stop in the mirror when I see it glinting in the light and forces me to try and isolate and rip it out.

3. I used to work with a guy named Smurf. He had either legally changed it already or was in the process of changing. His given name was Sean. I think Sean was a much better name than Smurf.

4. I still want to get a tattoo. I have since I was 18.

5. I still secretly like Big Macs. (Well, I guess it's not a secret now.)

6. I have a spider in my basement that I have developed an attachment to. I've named her Charlotte. She's a garden orb spider and spun a web over my washing machine. Once I found out that she wouldn't attack me and I correctly identified her, I let her stay. She's really fascinating. She eats her web at night and builds a new one every day. I've seen her spinning the new one fairly frequently. Since she has taken up residence, the fly population in the basement has dropped to zero at times, then somebody goes and leave the door to the outside open again and more come in. She has recently deviated from her typical schedule and I think she might be preparing to lay eggs and die. That makes me kind of sad.

In general I am scared of spiders and will squash them on sight, because I'm afraid of having a nest of hobo spiders reproducing in my house.

I'm tagging:

Lisa at Colors Outside the Lines (I haven't been commenting, Lisa, but I'm still reading!)
Hunny Bunny (same for you, I guess I'm just a lame commenter)
Tonia at Try to Catch the Wind (because I just started reading her relatively new blog and I think she just started reading mine
April at Little Pitchers (maybe she'll humor me and do it)
Sheila at Growing Wild Farm (because she needs something to post about this time of year)

That's only five, but it's all I could come up with when considering people who might actually do it!

Celebrating the Big 12 with A Nancy Drew Party

Having my oldest child celebrate her 12th birthday was very strange. She's almost a teenager and it's rather surreal to me, because in many ways it seems impossibly quick, but in other ways it seems like we've been through a lot to get to this place.

I've had several questions about what we did for a Nancy Drew/detective party, so I will share. I'm not a party planning whiz by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it scares me to orchestrate a party and wonder if enough activities have been planned and if they will go over well and be entertaining or be a flop. This might be a good time to say that we never invite a huge group, that's too impersonal to me. She invited four of her friends and three came for the first part of the party and one came later.

First off Maddy and several of her friends are into Nancy Drew. Not the new movie one, the old, original Nancy Drew from the series. We have an office supply store that sells some Nancy Drew products with graphics from the front of the original books and Maddy was so thrilled to find that several months back. But I digress.

We started out by sending invitations that we cut into puzzle pieces so the recipient would have to put it together to find out what it was all about. The puzzle pieces were actually mailed in the fold-up Nancy Drew stationary mentioned above.

I planned the following activities for the party: scavenger hunt, who am I game, murder mystery, find the time bomb and we rented the Original Nancy Drew Movie Mystery Collection (four of the original movies from the 30's).

The scavenger hunt was actually the biggest source of worry for me because I couldn't figure out the venue I wanted to use. I didn't want to let the girls loose in the neighborhood with a list like we used to do when I was younger, because we don't live in that age anymore or the type of neighborhood where we are close to our neighbors. We don't even know most of them. I thought about a store or our historic downtown, but that makes speed and keeping an eye on the girls a concern. So, I settled on a park, but then I couldn't figure out what would be on the list. So, the morning of the party, I swung by the chosen park and made a list of 30 things that I saw that could easily be identified and found by the girls.

When it came time to do the actual hunt, we went to the park and then I had them draw teams. Team A and Team B. Each team got their list. The list had the same items on it, but in different order. This was a type of digital photo scavenger hunt. The rule was that they could collect an item and put it in their envelope if possible, say an acorn or a lichen, and if they couldn't collect it, say a slide, then they should take a picture of it with the camera that each team had. Or they could choose to take photos of everything, which is pretty much what both teams chose to do. Then they had to have me look through the photos and check them off for accuracy. The whole activity took about 50 minutes or so and it was well received by all the girls. It was very close. About one minute separated the teams finish times and they were both stuck on the same two items. There were many compliments and all girls got goody bags upon finishing that had some items that all detectives need: a flashlight, notebook and pencil. We wanted to add a magnifying glass and compass, but we couldn't find reasonably priced ones locally.



The girls busily running and checking things off!


I found these mushrooms while I was following the two teams around the park. I wanted to take them home and cook them, but I didn't know if they were edible.

Before and after the hunt the girls played board games. After the hunt they watched one of the Nancy Drew episodes. Then I started cutting toppings and shredding cheese for the individual pizzas we were making. (Thank goodness I remembered to start the dough before we left for the hunt!)

We played murder mystery, which is a game that I saw online and it requires that you have slips of paper for each of the guests. On one piece of paper you draw a gun (this denotes the killer) and on one you draw a magnifying glass (this denotes the detective). The rest are blank. You draw slips and then the turn the lights off. The murderer then chooses a victim and goes to them and whispers "you're dead" or something like that, the victim screams, the lights are turned back on and then the detective has to question everyone, except the victim. Everyone must tell the truth except the murderer. This was a hit. We got to hear a variety of scream pitches and volumes and hilarious laughter.

The who am I game went over okay. You play it by taping the name of a well-known person, living, dead or fictional on the each person's back and each person must ask yes or no questions to determine who they were. This was somewhat hard because not everyone knew who the people were!

The time bomb one was also fun and it was the last game we did because it was getting on towards 10:00. This required someone hiding a ticking clock (in this case the only one we could find was Lawrence's chess clock from tournaments!) and then everybody had to find it. A simple premise, but surprisingly fun.

In between things we also had cake and ice cream. It was carrot if you want to know.

Then the girls wound down and played more quiet games up in Maddy's room and eventually drifted off to sleep.

Then we had a heaping pile of pancakes and maple syrup for breakfast.

Putting Local Food Up

I've been putting food away like a busy ant lately. I think I'm done for the season. My little basement pantry area seems full, but I am sure that the food I put up won't last us for the next three seasons. Thank goodness we can get many local veggies around here during the winter!

On this side you see:

• Tomato sauce: 4 1/2 pints, 11 pints and 3 quarts
• Diced tomatoes: 8 pints and 13 quarts
• Tomatillo salsa: 5 1/2 pints and 4 pints
• Jalapeno salsa: 3 pints
• Dried zucchini: 2 1/2 pints, 2 pints and 1 quart
• Dill pickles: 4 quarts

On this side you see:

• Vanilla pears: 1 pints and 18 quarts
• Dried apples: 6 quarts
• Dried cherries: 2 quarts
• Dried cantaloupe: 1 quart
• Dried oregano: 1 pint
• Dried mint: 3 quarts

In here you see 3 1/2 pints, 8 pints and 4 quarts of frozen applesauce, along with all the berried that we froze during the summer.

So, that's what I've been up to the past several weeks when I haven't been posting much.

I also have lots to do today since my oldest is turning 12...12! tomorrow and she is having a Nancy Drew/detective sleepover party today with her girl friends.

Homegrown Calendula Salve

Calendula is helpful for many skin conditions; it can be applied topically or internally. Romans named it calendula because it bloomed on the first day of the month (calends), it seemed to them. Roman used it to treat scorpion bites. Old herbalists believed that frequent use would prevent gangrene or tetanus. It is an excellent antiseptic because it contains natural iodine. As a tea it can be used for gargling or a nasal wash to soothe tender mucus membranes. It can heal membranes inside the body, such as colon, stomach, liver and gums. Applied as a poultice, it promotes healing of cuts and wounds. However, its most common application is as an ointment, salve or oil for injuries, burns, bruises and varicose veins.

I've been growing calendula since last year. I've decided to actually do something with it this year. I think the hardest part is getting around to planting and growing something. Then, when it is growing, you can harvest and dry and then figure out what to do with it later.

I've been harvesting blooms as they appear and drying them in my dehydrator along with batches of tomatoes, zucchinis and apples.

When I had about 3/4 of a cup of dried flowers, I put them in about 1/2 cup of sweet almond oil. I heated this on the stove and then let them steep for almost a week. I would pop it back on the stove every couple of days to reheat the oil to extract more good stuff. This is optional. You could pour the oil and dried blossoms in a jar and let it steep like that for several weeks. Or just heat it gently on the stove for several hours.

When I thought it was appropriately steeped, I filtered the oil through a colander lined with cotton. You could use muslin, flannel or cheese cloth.

The oil is a beautiful golden orange-y color.

After it is strained, I gently heated the oil again and grated about a tablespoon of beeswax into it.

I dropped a drop onto a plate and stuck it into the refrigerator to see if it would harden to a desirable consistency. It is much like testing jam.

When it was just right, I poured it into an empty mint tin.

For a small amount of time and cost, I made a homegrown calendula salve. I'm going to continue to harvest blossoms and make another batch or hopefully two. Maddy also harvested about 1/2 cup of seeds, so if anyone would like to grow some, we have plenty of seeds to share!

Another Summary of Days

My days have so jam-packed lately that I haven't had much time to blog about things, so here is a summary of Thursday and Friday.

Thursday was a busy one! We started out by going to Juliana and Isabel's first tumbling/gymnastics class. They had a blast, despite Juliana being very hesitant and shy.

Then we headed out to a local pumpkin patch with our homeschool group.

The weather was really nice for the most part, then we got hit with a downpour shortly before we left.

After that we headed to the last farmers market of the season. It was a sad affair really. We said good-byes to the vendors that we will miss seeing weekly. We will still see some of them regularly for other things, but the market setting is unique and special. It is a community affair and feels it. We always run into friends and have to allot not only the time it takes to shop, but chat time too! Though the weather is getting colder and autumnal, there was still lots to buy.

• one cucumber
• one bunch of carrots
• one bell pepper
• two zucchinis
• one bunch of collard greens
• one bag of broccoli (the last one they had!)
• one small head of lettuce
• one amber cup squash
• one bag of fingerling potatoes
• 2 delicata squashes
• a couple pounds of tomatoes
• one bag of cherry tomatoes
• onions
• jalapenos
• six ears of corn
• four pounds of pickling cucumbers
• and we stocked up on some herbal medicines for the winter: two bottles of anti-viral tincture, one pound of lung relief tea and one pound of immune defense tea
• a free bunch of flowers from one of Maddy's friends

As we left, I reminded the girls that this was the last farmers market of the year and Juliana (3 1/2 years) replied, "But where will we get tomatoes from?" Haha! That cracked me up. I guess that question speaks volumes about how we shop and how and where our children perceive food comes from. Vegetables certainly don't primarily come from a grocery store to them.

On Thursday night and Friday I heard that our area was expecting our first hard frost so I decided we better get out to the u-pick one last time for some tomatoes for sauce.

My helpers grabbed buckets and cart and went to work with me. We picked 45 pounds of paste tomatoes, a few more jalapenos, tomatillos for one last batch of tomatillo salsa, a few zucchinis for drying and more corn for freezing, possibly. I think I will finish our preserving this week and I will let you all know what I've been up to!

We left the farm with the sun lowering and this pretty shot of their flower field!

A Long Overdue Growing Challenge Update

Since I don't update weekly or even at any regular interval, I don't know if I can technically still claim to be participating in the Growing Challenge, but I am still in it in spirit!

Here are some recent photos of the garden and a helper.

Here's the raised bed that I built at the beginning of August. You can see beets there on the bottom left, a couple of Brussel sprouts to the right of those and then all along the right side are rattlesnake beans. Above the beets is a strip of kale, then above that lettuce and radishes with some chard interspersed. Further up is cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli and at the very top is cilantro, basil and parsley.

When I was hanging laundry out to dry, I spotted this sparkling water droplet and it looked like a beautiful jewel, so I had to attempt to capture it.

Aren't these purple blossoms on my rattlesnake beans pretty?

Some cherry and pear tomatoes and a nasturtium blossom that Isabel collected and then photographed.

Teeny, fully-ripe pear tomatoes!

We like to dress up all fancy to work in the garden!

Tomatoes Get Saucy

On Wednesday evening we picked these 43 pounds of paste tomatoes in about 20 minutes. We had to, the u-pick farm changed their fall hours and closed one hour earlier than I thought!

I've never made or canned homemade tomato sauce before. I mean I've made quick tomato sauces with fresh tomatoes and even store-bought canned tomatoes, but never run fresh tomatoes through a food mill and cooked them down until dark red, fragrant and wonderful. I never knew what I was missing before. I decided to can some pints this year and had this in mind when we picked on Wednesday. But, after making the first batch, I realized that the sauce was too delicious and would not last us until next year. So, we need to try to get out again and pick more tomatoes. So far I've canned five pints and two half pints using a bit more than half of those tomatoes. The major problem is that on the first batch of four pints, I accidentally forgot to add citric acid (which I'm using in place of lemon juice) so I don't think I can keep them on the shelf very long. I was planning on just storing them in the extra fridge, but last night when I was getting short on time for planning dinner and I'd been smelling this deliciousness for so long, I decided to make spaghetti and lamb sausage meatballs.

Oh my. I think it was the best spaghetti I've made, ever. I used three of my un-citric acidified pints, so now I'm already down to three pints and to half pints. I won't get double that with the tomatoes I have left, because I'm going to try drying some in my dehydrator. See why I need to pick more?

Apple Scrap Vinegar

What do you do with all those leftover apple cores when you are making dried apples? Well, you might compost them as I usually would or you might remember that Riana is making apple scrap vinegar and then go online and find a recipe to do the same.

I put lots of cores (you could also use any skins or any un-buggy bits of apple) into my recently thrifted $1.00 glass jar and topped it off with water. Cover with cloth and let it sit and ferment for a month or so. After that time, I will start taste testing it and when it is the flavor I like, I will strain out the solids and bottle it up. If I could find another glass jar I would likely start another batch.

See the bubbles already starting to form after sitting for a couple of days!

Real Letterboxing

I've mentioned letterboxing before, but I'll go over it again for any of you who don't know what letterboxing is. Letterboxing is an activity that utilizes problem solving and orienteering skills in finding hidden letterboxes. Letterboxes contain one or more stamps and a log book. The letterboxer has their own personal stamp and log book and brings a pen or pencil to write notes in either log book, if they wish and a compass. You can find letterboxes in all 50 states and many other countries. You probably have several in your town. Atlas Quest is a great website to search for letterboxes near you or any places you plan on traveling to. This would be a great activity to do on a road trip! The concept is simple. You get a clue to where a letterbox is hidden (it could be in a county or city park, a library, book store, coffee shop, restaurant, wine tasting room, really any public place!), gather your letterboxing supplies, head out to the destination, follow the clues and find the box. Take the box a short bit away from the hiding place for discretion, then you stamp your stamp into the letterbox log and write the date and your trail name, stamp the letterbox stamp into your log and write the date and place if you wish, repackage the letterbox as well or better than you found it, re-hide it exactly where you found it and then find another, because you will want to find another. This is a great family activity because it helps kids to flex their problem solving skills and get the family outdoors and spending time together. And who doesn't like a scavenger hunt type activity? It's like finding hidden treasure!

So, you probably wonder why I bring it up now. I am lucky enough to have a friend who is a very active letterboxer. She has hidden many of the boxes in our town and carves lots of stamps, she was even so kind to carve a personal one for our family last summer for our county-sponsored version of letterboxing, called tangleboxing. This friend did a letterboxing activity for our homeschool group on Tuesday. She provided bags of carving tools and materials and hid six boxes specifically for our group in a city park. It was a fabulous afternoon of crafting and then tromping around the park in search of the boxes and we also had super weather, which can be hit or miss this time of year.

These are the stamps that the girls and I carved. The two red ones are for the two little girls. Isabel's is a duck and Juliana's is a pig. I carved Juliana's completely and Isabel's mostly, though she did a bit of the carving after watching me. Maddy did one stamp and then started letterboxing (I think, though I'm not sure, because she left us and hung with her friends the whole time). After a bit she decided that she didn't like her stamp and did a new one. She asked that I not share the first because apparently she is very un-thrilled with her first attempt. After carving, we all chose trail names to accompany the stamp. This is done partly for creativity and partly for safety reasons so that people are signing their real names into all these log books. Usually a trail name has something to do with one's stamp. For instance, a cat stamp might have the trail name of "Cat's Meow". Some families do incorporate their surname into their family trail name. After the carving, we set off in groups to find the six hidden letterboxes. And the fun continued well past the time I had thought we would leave.

Lest you think that you can't accomplish these carvings because you have no artistic skills, I assure you that if you can trace, you can carve a nice-looking stamp. It seems like a mysterious talent, but like anything else, once the steps are explained, pretty much anybody can do it. If you attempt to carve your own stamp and try letterboxing you may become addicted. Maddy has informed us that she would like to start placing letterboxes so that she will have a legitimate reason to keep carving stamps. I hope to carve my own in the near future, but need to get my hands on more carving material. We have the carving nibs now, so we can easily carve more.

Gifting, Thrifting and Free

I actually did some sewing this week. It was for a friend's baby shower. I really like how she handled the gift situation. She, Lawrence and I had a specific conversation about gifts at Isabel's birthday party in August. It was about quantity and quality of gifts and how to mesh that with your values if you are opposed to consumerism and stuff for the sake of stuff. So, on her baby shower invitation it states, "If convenient, W. is graciously requesting second-hand, homemade, or locally purchased gifts." I thought that was great. You know that people are going to bring gifts, so a gentle nudge in the direction your values takes you was an ideal way to handle it, I think.

I decided to make a big stack of soft, flannel baby wipes and give her our baby wipes warmer. We no longer use it and it was a great convenience to have. We didn't have it with the first two, only Juliana and it was so handy to have warm wipes at the ready and it made using homemade, natural baby wipe solution a breeze. I am also planning on giving her a bottle of baby wipe solution concentrate, so she can just pour a few drops into the warmer, add warm water, add the wipes and have a whole warmer full of wonderful smell, good for her baby's skin, reusable wipes. Since I was barely able to get the wipes done on time, I haven't made the solution yet and I also forgot to take pictures to share with all of you. So, a photo of the two fabrics used on the wipes will have to suffice. I did double-sided flannel wipes. I sewed the squares wrong sides together, left an opening, turned them right side out and then top stitched. They turned out well.


I also had some successful thrifting, which is rare for me. I found this pretty apron at Goodwill. It is a pale green sheer kind of material with a vintage handkerchief as the pocket. This will be my fancy cocktail party apron. Oops. I don't have cocktail parties. I guess dinner with friends will have to suffice. I was in search of a one gallon glass jar to make apple scrap vinegar. I thought that I would have to make do with a sun tea jar with a spout. I didn't find any gallon glass jars at Goodwill, but at St. Vincent de Paul the next day I found the exact one gallon jar and lid that I wished for. Just a plain glass jar. I didn't have to settle for a sun tea jar. And it was only $1.00!

On the free front, we went to my friend's house and she let and helped us pick lots of apples. We got two varieties. One is a small to medium size red one with some green streaks. She didn't know what variety they were, because they were already on the property when they bought it. We also got some large pale green ones. She thought they might be Green Transparents. I think we must have picked about 80 pounds. What a generous friend she is. This is the same friend who let us pick lots of her cherries in the summer.



While we were there, we got to see both batches of chicks that we hatched. The first batch are starting to look like mature chickens.

See? They've grown a lot. This is one of the beautiful peachy colored ones.


Here's the second batch of chicks that we hatched. While we were incubating them, our friend discovered a broody hen on a clutch of eggs and our batch and her batch hatched within a day or so of each other; she was able to sneak our chicks in and the mama hen took them on as her own, so they are being raised by a chicken not a human!

Our friends own a property with a beautiful bio dynamic vineyard on it. The chickens jump up to eat the grapes hanging down. It's so fun to watch for us, though not for them because that is future wine!

Finally, on Monday we picked about 40 pounds of Bosc pears. They were offered on Freecycle, so we headed out and picked. Anyone know how long it takes pears to ripen after you pick them? I'm hoping it will take a while so that I can buy myself time to process everything. I have food piling up that needs processing! More posts on that to follow.