Do you love handmade holiday gifts as much as I do? For years, Brian and I have created homemade Christmas gifts for our friends and family - candles, paper, chocolate truffles (yum!), cutting boards, liqueur, knitted scarves, hats, fingerless gloves, and many more. Creating gifts with our own hands is something we value, something we pour our love into, and we hope that the recipients love the gifts as much as we love making them. If you love handmade gifts too, here is some inspiration: A list of over 100 handmade holiday gifts to make at home: Handmade Holiday Gifts for the Home Beeswax candles Ten Easy Ways to turn a Canning Jar into a Christmas Present DIY Bayberry … [Read more...]
Homestead Waterworks
An area of our homestead infrastructure that we spend A LOT of time thinking about, worrying about, and being creative about, is water. As we are living completely off-grid, we have to figure out ways to source water for drinking, bathing, washing dishes, cooking, watering the garden, watering fruit trees, and watering animals. Over the past year we've developed some homestead water systems that were very successful, like our summer rain water catchment; some that were fairly unsuccessful, like our buried winter water catchment system; and some that work, but require a lot of effort, like carrying buckets of water from the pond to our home. Recently, I've been inspired by an amazing … [Read more...]
DIY Black Walnut Ink
Inspired by the many Black Walnut trees on our land, and subsequently, by all of the fallen walnuts, Brian and Ella made some homemade Black Walnut ink and quill pens. Their technique was rather simple: Collect Black Walnuts ( you want to use the outer husk, not the nut) Crush husk, or do what they did, which was wait until they were already partially rotten on the ground! In a large pot, cover husks with water and add some white vinegar Bring to a boil, then simmer. Brian simmered for about 30 minutes Cool, and then strain the liquid into a container Cut the tip of a rooster feather at a sharp angle to create a point Write! (Be mindful of the fact that … [Read more...]
Week Two
Two whole weeks on the land, and I feel like it's been months. There is something about this rustic camping situation that really slows down time, in a good way. There are no phones to answer, no computer with high speed internet beckoning me away from the present moment. Bed time is with the sunset (thankfully quite late these days!) and wake up time is whenever Everett decides it's time for his morning nursing. The days have been spent building, growing, preserving, and figuring out how to remain comfortable, clean, and relatively chigger and tick-free. For me, it's a particular challenge, as I have to interact with the outside world on a daily basis. A few weeks ago I auditioned … [Read more...]
Like a Kid Again
We've come out the other end of our first week of real Midwest snow, and I am in love. Throughout the snowy week, I kept meaning to sit down and blog, but the winter white was too compelling. Instead we all tromped about in the drifts, built a snow fort, threw snowballs, slid down a snow slide, built snow people, and cross country skied down the street. I felt like a kid again. It's been so many years since I've lived in a snowy climate, but I grew up in Massachusetts and went to college in Maine. Snow was a part of my life! And while I adored the sun of my time in Southern California, and the lush green of Oregon, there is just something about these four distinct seasons that makes me … [Read more...]
Homesite Picnic
Taking advantage of some warm, sunny winter days, we enjoyed a home site picnic last week. The western view from our hilltop is just stunning, and it was easy to imagine including a deep covered porch in our house design to take advantage the evening sunsets. Tucked in against a northern forest, the future house site just feels so right, and so exciting. If you've been following my blog for a while, you might notice that this land looks somehow different than what you've seen before. That's exactly true - we have decided to relocate to a piece of land just to the north, and join two other families in creating a community land trust on 60 acres. How this came to be is really … [Read more...]
Thoughts at the end of 2012
Hello Friends! I feel like such a long time has passed since I've sat down to write. It's been a very busy holiday season, as I'm sure it has been for you too. My little girl turned five (!), we celebrated each week of Advent with a beautiful and magical community ceremony, we had a delicious Christmas Eve dinner, we received the joyous news that our close friend had a baby, and we had visits from several dear friends.And then things got quiet around here. And it got very cold. And we got pretty sad. And homesick.Sure, we could have easily picked up the phone to proactively get to know some new acquaintances, but it just seemed so daunting. It's hard to get out of a funk sometimes. I … [Read more...]
Five!
Our sweet Ella Rose is five today! Sharing her birthday with the beginning of winter, she has indeed brought more light into our lives. What a sweet, spirited, creative, strong girl she has become. Happy Birthday Ella! … [Read more...]
Creating.
In the wake of the Newtown, CT tragedy, it has felt somewhat trivial to imagine sitting down at this computer to share crafts or stories about my children; like everyone else, I'm just trying to make sense of this senseless tragedy. Yet when I think about the ways in which I bring peace and joy and love into the world, it is through creativity. I love to create, to share my love of the arts with children, and to teach others how to engage with their creativity. These days, it seems like I am doing nothing but creating. We are blessed with a Winter Solstice baby; on Friday, Ella will celebrate the return of the light AND her fifth birthday! I've been hard at work on her handmade birthday … [Read more...]
