This is where I live...

And yet, sometimes, we forget to take advantage of all it has to offer. Thank goodness for friends, who make us go out when we think we're too tired to get off the couch. With our community of immediate neighbors, we enjoyed a delicious pot-luck picnic on top of a gorgeous mountain, with this amazing view, followed by honky-tonk music, swing dancing with the baby in the sling, and an intermission to watch the sunset from the porch. Here's hoping we'll remember to take time to savor what we've got around us more often.

Where the wonderful books are

One of the blogs I absolutely must read every day is Vintage Kids Books My Kid Loves. Like me, "scribbler" is a children's-book lover (have you seen my obscenely-large, beautiful collection of children's books? Some might say I'm addicted. Some might say it's hard to maneuver around the piles. Others might relish every word, every illustration, and every minute spent snuggling up with a child, sharing the joy.) She has a special fondness for vintage books, and, apparently, amazing skills at finding vintage treasures at bargain prices. And every single day, she reviews another one. The part that really shocks me is how often she reviews books I've never seen (I know more children's books than anyone I know, and yet...) She's dangerous to my wallet; my wish list is full of books she's reviewed. And, as if that's not enough...every Monday, she gives away a vintage book to some lucky reader. This time, I won! What a treat! I wasn't paying enough attention when I was reading (might have something to do with a teething baby...) and mixed up which book was being offered this time, so I won one I already own: "Where the Wild Things Are." No matter. It's a classic that every kid should have, so I'll give it to one of the children in my early childhood program. Anyway, if you have any interest in children's books, or vintage books, or good design, go check out her blog (in fact, if you go right now, you can enter to win "The Big Orange Splot," another wonderful book...).


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Independence Days challenge, week 10

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

1. Plant something: Nothing.
2. Harvest something: Eggs. Mulberries. Clover. Kale. Good King Henry. Garlic scapes. Strawberries (bartered labor for berries at a local organic farm; that's Lucy, "picking berries" above).
3. Preserve something: Canned 7 1/2 pints mulberry jam (from this recipe), 3/4 pint strawberry-lemonade concentrate, 2 pints strawberry-quince preserves. Dried 2 pints strawberries, 1 pint dill, 1 pint red clover blossoms, 4 pints mulberries. Froze mulberries, strawberries.
4. Waste not: Nothing new.
5. Preparation and storage: Organized past two years' preservation lists into a notebook to use as reference for this year.
6. Build community food systems: Spent a lot of time, while making a spectacle of ourselves at the mulberry tree, talking with neighbors about foraging and mulberries. Brought the children in my early childhood program foraging for mulberries and clover.
7. Eat the food: Finishing off the last of 2008 preserves.

Bringing light to the sunroom

We call it the sunroom, because that's what it looked like to us when we moved in (a once-upon-a-time porch, now enclosed to be a room). But we ought to call it the living room, not in the formal don't-go-in-unless-there's-company sense, but because it's the room where we live. There, the children and I gather on the couch to read for hours, and their moms gather to chat in the mornings before heading off to work. Babies learn to crawl on the rug there, and pull up to stand at the coffee table, which is a constantly-changing landscape of play in process: blocks, puzzles, animal cities, shell designs, etc, etc, etc. We collapse in exhaustion there at the end of the day, and more often than I care to admit, meals are eaten right there, too.

But to me, the life has gone out of it recently. The furniture is showing its age (it's all free stuff covered with slipcovers or bedspreads). The pillows are dull and bought to enhance a previous couch. The rug is looking flat and matted. I've been wanting to inject some new life, but haven't had the right inspiration (or time) yet.

The other night, I could take it no longer. I took 15 minutes to transform 2 placemats and some vintage buttons into a new cover for a wintery-looking throw pillow, to inject some summer energy into the room.

Before:


After:


Next up: a change for the couch. Here's the before:

Stay tuned for the after. Maybe posting that I plan to do it will be the motivation I need.

Happy Independence Day!

Friends, family, a quiet state forest, a gorgeous hike, toes dipped in the lake, a sunny day at last; who could ask for more?

A taste of summer: treasures from the shore

It's been miserable and grey and rainy here for what seems like forever. I needed a touch of summer...something fresh in the house to cheer me up. I put together this display, in a footed glass trifle dish, of the treasures I found on our May trip to Maine. Ahhh...a little better.

Foraging with children

Andi and I made a commitment two years ago to eat only local fruits and vegetables. This means a great deal of time is spent gathering and preparing local produce for storage. The children in my early childhood program are included in that process, and therefore know a lot about where food comes from, what's in season, and how to preserve food. This week, they helped me forage for local goodies: mulberries (to be dried and added to winter granola, as well as to be eaten fresh) and red clover (to be dried for tea).