Yarn Along: 30 March

Joining Ginny again this week...

Oh another Wednesday Yarn Along.  My favorite! I missed last week as my computer was sick.    That sickness is of a human variety now in our house; some are effectively staving it off and other are falling prey.  I am usually the last man sanding.  We'll see this time...

My funny little blue blanket is turning itself into a sweater, I say.  I am working on the neck right now on the B.O.B.  One fear confirmed and another allayed.  The length of it is going to be just fine, but I am indeed going to run out of yarn.   Luckily, there is someone right here in my town (love Ravelry) who is going to sell me hers at half price.  Whew!

And reading... still The Good Life.  Those Nearings were quite an impressive pair.  Not sure they would become my best friends, but I could darn sure learn something from them.  Wow.  When I am not reading that, I am obsessively looking up information on chickens in preparation for the arrival of our new friends.  

I will likely finish up some reading this week and am looking for a good, practical book on homeschooling, one that will help me set up shop next year.  Any recommendations?

Garden in Waiting...

This is the first year I am growing anything from seed and I am finding it... challenging.  I have direct sown some seeds right into our beds (in Northern New Jersey, peas can go into the ground on St. Patrick's day, and lettuce can go in shortly thereafter) and I have planted some in flats indoors to be transferred around the middle of April.

My peas have taken a long while to sprout; I just saw the beginnings of the first one today nearly a month after it was planted.  I have word, though, from a local master gardener that I should not worry.  They will come.  The sheer mystery of it confounds me, really.  I know that seeds do this in theory, but I am sure that they will not do it for me, here in my yard, at my hands.  Only for scientists and experts, not for me.  But that first little sprouted seed is proving me wrong as I write this.  I too can bear witness to the mystery of life.  Amazing.

My indoor seeds are faring less well (evidently).  They had a few factors working against them~our house gets relatively little light~what light they did get got dimmed when our baby napped~and, most importantly, I have no idea what I am doing.  I watered them too much, I watered them too little, I left them outdoors too long, and I have no ability to pluck out seedlings that are competing for obviously limited resources.  Hmmmp.  

I am going to give indoor starts another try with tomatoes and peppers in April as they don't go into the ground until May around here. Spinach, broccoli, cauliflower and the rest will have to go directly into the ground.

Nature Study Monday: The Common Grackle

Oh you Grackle, you!  I am just not one of your fans...  This very large bird scares all of my little bird-feeding friends away from our feeders.  And instead of taking a bite and leaving, he remains there for a long while.  

Evidently I am not the only one who is not a fan...  The Grackle is an enemy at large of corn crops.  They gather in large numbers and destroy crops on a regular basis.  

Somehow this does not surprise surprise me.  A menace, I say...

Nature Study Monday: Baltimore Oriole

Oh I spotted something yellow at the feeder!  At long last!

We have here what (I think?) are two female Baltimore Orioles.  They visited us a while back; I haven't posted about them yet because I have not been entirely sure what to call them.  I keep coming back to this identification so I think I will stick with it.  If you know better, please enlighten me!

These birds don't generally spend their winters this far north which has only confounded me more.  They do however spend summers with us, so maybe some early migrants?

Orioles are songbirds whose nests are gourd-shaped and hang from a trees branches.

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.  

Amanda Soule

Yarn Along: 16 March

Joining Ginny again...

Houston, the sleeves are connected!  and I am pretty sure that the sweater is going to be several inches too short but we won't let that disturb the victory. Oh yes, the B.O.B. is coming right along and it has provided me many moments of knitting and watching quiet this week.  

The actual connection of the sleeves was new knitting for me.  They are not seamed in, but rather knitted into the garment (which is not a top down knit).  Tricky and fascinating process this knitting in of the sleeves; it gave me a whole new respect for pattern writers as I still have no idea how it worked, is working. I do though have significant doubts about the length.  Still, onward and upward! 

Right now I am working on the neck and getting ready for the button band.  Buttons!  For ME!  Why oh why have I not knit something for myself before this?  It is glorious! as long as the bottom of the sweater covers my belly button.

The reading has been very good this week as well.  I am loving The Good Life; although I must admit, I am more than slightly intimidated by their construction of many many buildings out of stone.  I think I have some pretty serious character deficiencies that would prevent me from ever adding that to my personal list of accomplishments.  Namely I am more of a "let's get it done-er" than a planner (I am working on this one though because it has cost me in time, in appearance, in sturdiness).  Could my sweater fit have anything to do with this ? And, while I am in constant motion, doing doing doing much of the time (also trying to work on this one), I aim for perfection and accept much less.  So the intricate details about their stone work left me pretty confounded; the chapter on gardening, though, has me riveted.  

And finally, Chickens In Your Backyard has crossed my lap a few times this week.  We have four baby chicks on the way next month so some preparations need to be made...

Garden Markers

Please forgive me for posting about painting and gardening while Japan is in the midst of such a tragedy.  I don't have a lot of words for what is happening so I will stick with the words I have...

With the emergence of warm weather, I do not do a lot of thinking about how we will spend our afternoons.  When the older two are done with their quiet time and the littlest is up, we simply go outside.  There are trucks and mud, sand and bikes, shovels and pails and any combination of the aforementioned. Built-in entertainment.  I.love.the.outdoors.

Lest I lose perspective though, this is March in the Northeast.  March is not exactly balmy.  I am overzealously putting on my bathing suit (not really, but almost) and mother nature is still blowing some freezing temperatures our way.  

All of this is to say that we do still have some indoor days in our immediate future.  If not from freezing weather, then at least from rain.  I am trying to come up with a store of springtime indoor activities that can hold our attention inside when we can not be out (we have all had just about enough of Candyland).  Last week on one of those rainy days, I broke out the acrylic paints (I do get some cold sweats with those though.  Acrylics and preschoolers and dining room.  Ack.  Acrylics, preschoolers, dining room, and blue plastic tarp makes it slightly better).

I got the plywood rectangles at our local Michael's for 99 cents each and then I ordered some of these to anchor them in the ground.  We have some more plaques on the way that I ordered online so we can finish the project up on another rainy day.  

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.  

Amanda Soule

On The Table

We are a meat eating family.  Up until now, nearly every dinner contained some sort of meat, poultry or fish.  I was once a vegetarian (for about 6 years), but if ever there was born a woman who was meant to eat meat, it was me.   I really love it and I become very very anemic in its absence in my diet.

BUT I do recognize that one can get too much of a good thing, especially when that one thing also puts a significant dent in the grocery bill each week.  In an effort to conserve resources of all kinds, we are eating vegetarian 1-2 nights each week.  

I have made mujadara before.  Long ago, I learned of the recipe here and have made it numerous times since.  Lately it has become a bimonthly staple on our dinner menu (much to the dismay of our middle child) and we love it (except for said onion-disliking middle child). It is an easy recipe to make; I often make it when I am low on groceries as I always have lentils, rice, and onions on hand.

My husband and I are also spice lovers and this meal, to me, calls out for some spice.  I found this recipe and added some chopped jalapenos to greek yogurt, and a delicious meal got even tastier.

Yarn Along: 9 March

Another Wednesday Yarn Along with Ginny...

Oh the knitting and the reading have been rather exciting for me this week (although the general population might find those words strange in one sentence together, I know that you will relate),

Two arms completed on the B.O.B.!  Oh yes, I may just finish this one in time to make use of  it this year.  I really am in dire need of something warm and cozy and not a zip-up hoodie.  I do love my Brooklyn hoodie but it seriously lacks style (so do I these days), fit, and form (I do believe I am actually lacking all of them...).   

I am going to come perilously close to running out of yarn on this baby though so the project might be stalled.  Ordering a new skein is not in the budget unless it absolutely has to be so we are waiting and seeing...  Living on the knitting edge over here, I tell you.

The Good Life is proving to be a really very informative read.  It adds color and shape to my own homesteading dreams.  Meanwhile, I am tending to our backyard garden and enjoying some great gardening reads.  The Family Butterfly Book and How to Grow More Vegetables are getting the most use right now.

For The Love of Bread and Its Storage

I have long struggled with how to properly store our bread.  We don't have a bread box and I am unwilling to give up the counter space for one.  I try my hardest to stay away from plastic baggies.  Up until now, I have been left with wrapping our loaves with wax paper and putting them in the refrigerator.  While this is a good solution, it is not a great one.  The wax paper can be reused only once or twice--by the second time around it is a crinkled, ripped and crumbly mess.  

Then I remembered this post. On Saturday, with two happily playing together and another one sound asleep, I made some bread bags.  Out of old linens given to me by my mother-in-law, they were really very simply to make.  I sewed two rectangles together and added a drawstring.  An end to my dilemma and some happy crafting time for Mama.

This endeavor inspired some bread-making today.  Normally, I bake two loaves of bread and a batch of granola on Monday morning.  For the past couple of weeks I have fallen out of the habit so it was nice to get my hands in some dough again.  It is easy to forget the meditative powers of kneading bread; how sweetly it comes back to me when the whole process begins.  

I use this book each week (it remains permanently open on my counter).  I have been using it for a couple years now and have not ventured beyond the first bread recipe in the book.  In fact, until today, I had not even looked at the recipes.  

On bread-making days, snacks are so easy.  I try to time the bread to come out of the oven when my two older children are emerging from their quiet time.  Warm bread with honey and milk is just right on these windy March days.

I remember baking bread with my Grandmother in California--her white apron, her various  bread concoctions, her freezer bags, and the folds of her hands folding into the folds of the bread.  Days long long past and days that have yet to unfold in the endless cycle of bread-making and life.  It goes on.

Nature Study Monday: American Robin

I was so surprised to see a gaggle of American Robins gathering at our backyard feeders this winter.  For me, and for many others, this bird has been a harbinger of spring, but the American Robin overwinters year-round in the Northeast (and throughout the rest of the United States).  My father-in-law originally spotted them and, like any red-blooded daughter-in-law would, I doubted him, severely.  But then I witnessed them with my very own eyes.

There they were--red-bellied, skinny-legged Robiness right in the middle of a New Jersey winter.  There was something about it that felt very wrong to me.  Robins spend their winters roosting in trees, rather than foraging for food on the ground, so we see a lot less of them.  They can hatch three different broods in one year, although some robins may not actually hatch any at all.  Few of the hatchlings live and even fewer make it through a winter.

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.  

Amanda Soule

The Harvey T

I find it so interesting the individual clothing style that develops with each child.  Our daughter loves to wear dresses.  This one was a hard one for me to accept, because I am more of a cords and turtleneck kinda gal; despite my grand efforts.  She likes dresses, the pinker the better.  So there it is.

Our middle child has very unique tastes in what goes on his body.  Over the summer, he wore only pajamas (long-sleeved ones in 90 degree weather).  He has since taken off his pajamas (glad that phase is over) and now (along with leggings and socks pulled over them) he dons all kinds of interesting t-shirts that reflect his very quirky, very lovable personality. For Christmas, I made a volcano t-shirt for him; for his birthday he got an {imperfect} H {for Harvey}.  He loves it and wears it like he is some sort of H-Man superhero.  I don't love the shirt so much but boy do I love the boy in it...

Yarn Along: 2 March

Joining Ginny again today...

Winter is coming to an end around here (or so we think) and I am finishing up on some reading and knitting projects.  I read the final pages of Winter World a couple of nights ago.  A wonderful read.  I learned so much about the lives of creatures big and small during the cold months.  I am looking forward to reading Summer World now.  In the meantime, we picked some Elsa Beskow books from the library and I have started The Good Life.  I am knitting the second sleeve on the B.O.B. and am looking to wear it in the very near future.

Happy Birthday Little One

We think you are simply spectacular!