mandy gerth

Beginning

2012-01-05T19:15:00.000-08:00

For the past three years I have loved sharing things I make here.

And I intended to do that with the handmade gifts I made this year.

But with a teething baby and two little children who keep passing a virus back and forth (yes, it is still going...) the holiday season this year was a blur. The photos were minimal, the plans got scaled back...way, way back...

...and we made a serious dent in our stash of herbal tea.

I've had a lot of time lately to think. Indeed, possibly too much.

I am going to take the remainder of this month to carry some questions along in my head, to give them time and space to germinate before hitting that 'PUBLISH POST' button.

I'm excited to see where this pause leads. Until then, I wish you well friends.

peace within

2011-12-20T08:17:00.000-08:00

The last month has brought:

A first tooth.

A whole family coming down with a lingering stomach bug. And it lingering in the most sensitive of us for long enough to send me to the library with a long list of books to check out and a re-commitment to our families' health.

Oliver getting his Christmas gift early (Yes, that's an Ergo, and Oh My Goodness it is wonderful!)

The 'normal' flurry of making and wrapping.

The last three weeks I have been in the house with the kids a lot more than usual. Not writing enough, not talking to other adults enough. I've learned this combination makes for my mind turning into a crazy jumbled place.

A few days ago in a moment of beautiful quiet these thoughts drifted in:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
simple does not mean easy
simplicity is alive and well
like a pumpkin vine or a sourdough starter
simplicity can deflate entirely
or take you by surprise
and grow prolifically out of thin air
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With that thought in mind I say a little prayer for simplicity.

And that makes all the difference towards creating peace within.

Garlic Thoughts

2011-12-16T11:14:00.000-08:00

These are my last two heads of garlic from my own garden for the year.

Which, initially, left me feeling pretty bummed.

I thought I had planted enough for the year. But there are just two lonely heads of Garlic left in a teacup. As everyone who does a lot of cooking knows, that won't last long.

I ran out of onions and potatoes a few weeks ago.

Now, of course, I can check and see if they have some local ones at our food co-op and if not I'll buy them from far away and be glad to have them. But in the last two years I've gotten to know my farmers a bit and I would really rather my food money be going directly to these fine folks.

These two lonely heads of garlic have really got me thinking.

I love my kitchen garden and feel I get quite a bit of food out of it. I buy a lot of local foods in the summer but it's only December and my basement pantry isn't as full as I it could be. How does a family afford to buy all of their fruit in the summer and store it over winter? How many bushels of apples should I buy to last a year? How many bushels of onions? I haven't the slightest idea.

I'm thinking 2012 sounds like a good year to find out.

The Tree

2011-12-12T11:39:00.000-08:00

Can you believe I've never bought a Christmas Tree at a Tree Farm?
It's true.
This was our first time to go out to Sycamore Valley Tree Farm (Locals, there is no website. It's out on 7120 New Harmony Road.)
But it won't be the last time.

The boys had fun running in and out of all the trees.

I had fun watching the boys winding in and out of the trees and looking up at the sky and imagining Jay and I may find a place a bit more out in the country some day.

It always feels good to buy locally. My mom said the price of the trees were about the same as at a big box store. But a big box store doesn't have a nice sign like this one.

December is flying by. With my last craft show of 2011 done this weekend I'm looking forward to a bit of time sitting by our cozy little tree and stitching up some small gifts for the boys. I love hand sewing this time of year.

To capture a bit of these days, to let go of the lists, to do my housework with a grateful heart, to be kind to myself when I run out of patience and am feeling less than grateful, these are my goals going into the week. Hope you have a good one friends.

The Late Autumn Garden

2011-12-05T07:42:00.000-08:00

Oh, Late Autumn Garden how I love you, let me count the ways.

I love that you have no stinging bugs, I love how low maintenence you are, and I love that despite the fact that we had high hopes for building more sophisticated low tunnels and cold frames this fall the most simple addition of a fabric row cover dug into the earth on one side and held down by brick on the other side has kept the damaging winds and cold from killing these frost hardy vegetables.

I love the pace of the autumn garden. There aren't bushels of vegetables demanding to be processed before the go bad in the heat of the sun. These crops sit paitently waiting to be turned into dinner tonight, tomarrow, next month or a few months from now, they don't mind waiting.

I love learning from this garden. Which things should I plant more of next year in late summer and which should I plant more? More kale, less lettuce. I've learned from last year not to plant your carrots in a bed that had tomatoes in it or they will be big on flavor but short on size.

I love watching the claytonia and mache grow oh so slowly despite the fact that I have yet to cover them with row cover.

I love peeking in to check on my broccoli.

I love pulling up the first of my golden beets and the utter surprise I felt as I was humbled by their intense beauty. I love that after two years I can cook beet greens in a way that makes us look forward eating them.

I love how my kids clamor for these radiant carrots.

I love remembering my first attempt at a fall garden two years ago and that it resulted in a whole lot of nothing. A few turnips, some sad carrots, and a bunch of moth laden greens that I had no idea how to prepare. Two years later, I am bringing in basket after basket of luscious greens. I love knowing I have learned so much and there is so much more to learn.

I love feeling a deep sense of gratitude for this gift of abundance.

This Moment

2011-12-02T10:05:00.000-08:00

"{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember." - Words and Inspiration By Amanda

~One Week Only Online Sale~

2011-11-29T06:46:00.000-08:00

For One Week Only

~~~Every Print, Stationary, and Card Set in my Etsy store is buy one get one free.~~~

How it works:
Pick out a print or card set and put it in your shopping cart on Etsy.
When you are checking out put the item(s) you would like for free in the note to seller.

There is no buy one get one limit.

This sale will last through Tuesday December 6th.

www.mandygerth.etsy.com

Hoping you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!

~giving~thanks~

2011-11-17T17:48:00.001-08:00

With Thanksgiving just a week away I am finding myself overflowing with gratitude.

I am thankful for the resilience of these blooms. Who knew zinnias would stand up to twenty degree weather? I am so thankful to have their happy faces grace our table.

I am so thankful for my husband. He is an amazing partner and a kind father to our children.

I am thankful for the abundance of warm clothes filling our drawers (and I'm also thankful for that handmade rug my grandmother made).

I am thankful for the handmade items in our home. They keep me company and bring much warmth to this house of ours.

I am thankful for the bounty our garden continues to provide.

I am thankful for the light as it comes through our south facing windows in the late afternoon.

I am thankful to have sorted through our photos from the last few months making a big 'to be printed' folder. With a heart full of love for these beautiful children in my life.

I am thankful for a laughing baby. Baby Oliver has been teething and definitely isn't always laughing these days, but when he is laughing, they are the most beautiful things ever.

And in the coming week, when I think of the things I want to 'get done' during the break, when my lists start to pile up in this cramped head of mine I'll try to release all the 'wants' and with a heart wide open remember just how much i have to give thanks for.

This Moment

2011-11-10T19:03:00.001-08:00

piles, patchwork, and (thoughts on) new work

2011-11-10T11:07:00.000-08:00

Slowly, slowly, slowly...

...I have been making piles and piles and piles.

And the piles are somehow turning into packaged packs of stationary!

I was feeling kind of bummed about not having new work for the Art Sale coming up this weekend.

But, of course, I do have new work...and it's a pretty awesome kind of work.

Locals come out to what is my favorite indoor Art Sale of the year. The festive sale at Patchwork Central always has a wide selection of local arts and crafts and 30% of all sales go back into Patchworks meaningful youth programming.

Grace and Intent

2011-11-06T10:13:00.001-08:00

By American standards my family eats incredibly humble foods.

By global standards we eat like kings.

Brown rice soaking for dinner.

I’ve been thinking about food and food quality a lot lately.

There have been some pretty alarming increases in the staple foods our family eats. Whole wheat flour and peanut butter have both gone up. The way I think of groceries is kind of like a dance. If I can make all of these things from scratch then I’ll be able to afford to start buying x, y, or z of a higher quality.

Homegrown lima beans.

I’ve been doing that since Bayliss was a baby. Learning how to make more and more things ‘from scratch’ and then finding the space in the grocery budget to buy higher quality nuts, flour, milk, eggs. Now, with rising food prices and a growing family, I find myself doing the opposite. I’m starting to trade down the quality of certain foods and certain ingredients. I’m making pesto with canola oil and sunflower seeds instead of olive oil and walnuts. And anytime I start to feel down about not having ‘enough’ grocery money I put myself back into check by thinking how many women in the world would love to have the ‘problem’ of downgrading from walnuts to sunflower seeds.

For so many women in the world their real problems are no clean water and not enough calories for their children…and here I am fretting over sunflower seeds.

Oats and honey for granola.

But, we are living in such a strange time. A time when so many of the ‘foods’ available at the grocery store aren’t nutritious and (I believe) are actually harmful. We’ve gotten to a place where you can buy a pound of butter for two dollars or for six. And those two products are different in ways that have nothing to do with price. I love butter. But I’ve been wondering what it would take to start buying the right butter again. What can I change, what can I adjust.

I usually feel really good about how well I do with our budget. But I also struggle to find peace in my heart about buying products I know aren’t sustainable or that cause harm to the people who produce it.

Lately I’ve been feeling I should do even more organic and whole food cooking on my budget than I already am.

Pesto pizza ready for the oven.

In magical blog land you see my homemade bread, my beautiful vegetable garden, my wonderfully well fed children. In reality, since the baby was born, we’ve been eating frozen pizza once a week (okay, it is topped with loads of basil, but still I know too much about how that cheese is made, the GMOs in the flour, it goes on and on…).

In reality I buy bananas shipped over the equator with precious fossil fuels. Because they are so affordable. Because my children love them. Because…well, it’s easy.

Bayliss enjoying a cherry tomato.

In reality I buy pretzels and saltine crackers and serve them to my children with peanut butter for lunch everyday. Saltine crackers and pretzels actually cost less than homemade bread. But, looking at the list of ingredients on something as simple as a cracker it makes you wonder, “What the heck?”.

Beckett covered in cherry tomatoes.

In my heart I know it is wrong to buy sugar, coffee, and chocolate that aren’t fair trade. These products are farmed unethically, often by child labor. Maybe I need to cut them out of our diet entirely. They aren’t, after all, necessities. What if I made chocolate chip cookies (with fair trade sugar and chocolate) twice a year instead of twice a month?

I’ve been thinking about this so much that I let my coffee run out and haven’t replaced it. Luckily, Jay is a patient man. Lesser men would have filed a divorce in the last three days. I’ve been, how can I say it nicely, um, crabby? Yeah, really crabby.

These thoughts (and more, of course) have been swirling through my head as I nurse the baby to sleep. Mostly the thoughts drift up and float away. But I've been wondering what would happen if I could capture a few of these thoughts. What if I could take them from theory and put them into practice? What better time to start doing that than right now.

This month of November, one that celebrates the harvest and prepares us for the months of winter ahead has got me thinking, what does it mean to eat with grace and intent?

Hello Four

2011-11-04T11:51:00.000-07:00

Tuesday we celebrated Bayliss's fourth birthday. Our bright boy has grown in so many ways in this last year. I find myself at a lack of words both for the wonder at the amazing boy he is, right now, and what an amazing privledge it has been to be his mother and watch him grow for the last four years.

~~~Bayliss, we love you so much and wish you the best in your fourth year.~~~

First Birthday

Second Birthday

Third Birthday

Flying Time

2011-10-30T16:57:00.001-07:00

We took our trellises out of the garden this weekend

it feels like just yesterday we were putting them in the garden.

Our young family has grown so much since last May when we were setting those trellises out.

Baby Oliver is already three months old!

We've added another addition to our homestead. I'm not willing to say we've added them to our family...I'm not sure how permanent of an addition these birds are.

In addition to time flying, I've found these birds can also fly a bit if you leave their door open...and then you have to catch them...no fun.

Can you believe it's almost November? I can't. I love October, with the exception of the very last day of this crisp month of apples and acorns.

Halloween, I'm in denial of it's existence, and yet every year, there it is. Even with our oldest at an age where Halloween is fun for him, I'm still just not into it at all. Oh, well.

Bayliss's fourth birthday is coming up this week and I am very very excited about that!

This Moment

2011-10-28T11:01:00.000-07:00

YART!

2011-10-14T11:37:00.000-07:00

Locals don't miss YART tomorrow!

I'll be there with all my stationary and prints at special "YART ONLY" pricing as well as a handful of marked down older work and a few ever so slightly damages 'seconds'.

Hope to see you there and Happy Weekend!

A bad photo of some butter

2011-10-12T19:49:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I made butter with the boys following these directions.

I really thought the kids would think this was cool. I certainly thought it was cool.

But they were kind of like, whatever , it's butter.

Bayliss asked if we could play UNO.

And so, we did.

And then I took this really bad photo of this (really really good) butter. I used the cream from our milk "share" from Rose Hill Dairy. I've been separating some of the cream off of our milk using a turkey baster. We get a gallon and a half of milk a week. There is so much cream in this gorgeous milk. This summer we used the cream to make ice cream.

This fall we'll be using it for butter.

Because fall is all about the butter.

Autumn Outside

2011-10-05T11:16:00.000-07:00

We have had some fun stuff going on in our garden lately. Even the poor little neglected deck garden has been cleaned up a bit. Those red blossoming pole beans on the left are a variety called scarlet runner. I think they are meant for a cooler climate and I'll be saving some of the seeds for my Montana family. Although they didn't bear many beans their beautiful red blossoms attract hummingbirds. The boys have enjoyed watching the hummingbirds through the window.

This weekend we got a big chunk of work done. We went to the garden center and learned a very important lesson. Do not go to garden center to buy perennial plants with three small children or you may just come home with blueberries zoned for Texas. How did I not notice that these clearance (and thus non returnable) bushes are for zone 8-10? Perhaps the more important question is why would they even have these at the garden center? We aren't ones to complain (well, okay, if you've spoken to me in the last three days you will know I have been complaining...alot...about this) so we are leaving them in the ground to be a home for birds this winter and we'll search for some blueberry bushes next spring.

All of the summer veggies are out of the garden except the tomatoes. I'll leave them there until the first frost. The fall and winter garden isn't quite as far along as I'd like it to be the beets, chard, carrots, and kale are all chugging along slowly.

Beautiful salads are gracing our family table. This is a beautiful heirloom salad mix. It's funny I'm growing a mix again. Because last fall I wrote down in my garden journal "do not grow mix again, too hard to keep track of varieties of seeds". Which is true, it is hard to keep track of what is going to seed when I am saving and labeling the seeds when they are from a mix. But this spring is was kind of fun to see what popped up after I planted my seeds, "oh, I guess those where oak leaf". So, I decided a mix would be okay again after all.

I'm happy to report the food garden has made it's way to the front lawn! Here is a little strawberry patch I am starting from runners. This area only gets about six hours of sun a day. I planted soy here this year to see if it would produce in this partial sunny spot and sure enough we've got a freezer full of soybeans, so I figured if it got enough sun for beans maybe it will be enough for berries; time will tell.

Oh, and here's a fun little patch. I planted vetch as a cover crop when I took out our onions this spring. But I guess the onions went to seed and replanted themselves because we have tons of green onions mixed in with the vetch. It almost looks like I planned it that way.

We have been having lovely weather the last week. We've been enjoying a walk after dinner each night. And the mosquitoes are giving us a break so there has been lots of time to sneak in bits of garden work while the kids are playing outside.

And speaking of things growing like a weed. Precious little Oliver is 10 weeks old and loving his first attempts at sitting up.

I'd love to know if your family has anything fun going on in the beautiful Autumn weather lately.

Random Garden Thoughts

2011-09-22T12:04:00.000-07:00

This should probably be like five separate posts, but such is the state of my mind.

~ChickensJay built us a chicken coop. It's made entirely from scrap. Now we are looking for chickens.

~Garden Size. I’m pining for a larger veggie garden. I think our veggie patch is about 800 square feet (which is about the same as our house!). This is a great size for a ‘kitchen garden’. We stay in homegrown vegetables for most of the year but there isn’t enough space to grow as much food as I would like for canning and preserving. However, the rest of the full sun bits and pieces around our yard are going to be put into perennial fruit shrubs and trees over the next few years. So, a big part of my brainstorming for next season will be how to squeeze the most veggies out of this space. Which things are truly the best quality from our own garden as opposed to buying at the farmer’s market, and which are the most cost effective to grow rather than to buy. It would be cool if I could find a couple local growers to buy tomatoes and beans from by the bushel next year for canning. Our garden just isn’t big enough to put up big batches of things.

~Drying Things. This year I grew 12 tomato plants. 3 cherry tomatoes, a few slicers, and the rest ‘paste’ tomatoes. I have put them all up by drying them and freezing the dried tomatoes in glass jars. Time will tell if we like using these dried tomatoes. But my goodness, it sure is easier than canning, so I hope we like them.

Also dried eggplant. I got both the ideas to freeze the dried tomatoes and to dry the eggplant from Our Happy Acres my new favorite local garden blog. You’ve got to check this blog out. This post about garlic and this one about tomatoes is going to help me choose varieties in the coming year.

~Herbs. The herbs all did really well except my chamomile. We’ve got batches of dried parsley, oregano, mint, Echinacea, and lavender stored in the basement. I’ve been trying to cut and dry lots of herbs but they are hard to keep up with; these plants are prolific! I was feeling bad about not getting to all of them while they were in their prime, but I’ve noticed this year how the herbs left to flower and go to seed bring in tons of beneficial bugs. The parsley has made a plentiful crop of black tailed butterflies; just when I thought I was being wasteful, nature took over and showed me just how versatile these plants can be.

~The Basil. I know it’s an herb, but it gets its own mention because it’s my favorite. I grew Thai Basil this year for the first time and will definitely be growing it again next year. It’s a beautiful plant, more compact than Italian Basil. It has a distinct flavor that we’ve really enjoyed stir-fried with green beans served over brown rice. Would look beautiful in a container or an ornamental bed. I can’t get over how beautiful this plant is!
Basil is a pretty easy thing to grow from seed and I think I’ll start a few extra flats next year to give starts away to friends and family. It does so well here. I’ve put up enough frozen pesto to feed an army and I still have enough left to keep an entire Italian village in pesto. I plant my basil next to the tomatoes to keep the horn worms out. It seems to work, no worms here.

~Leaf Mold. This is what our leaves look like when saved for two years. I worked this mulch into the bed where I planted the carrots. Pretty amazing considering this was four enourmous trees worth of leaves reduced down into beautiful dirt.

We made our little leaf mold bin out of sod when we expanded our veggie patch over the last two years. There are two separate sod ‘bins’ one is large the other is smaller. After the first year the leaves compress down and I turn them over into the smaller bin. We’ve lived here two years and it’s pretty cool to be ‘harvesting’ our leaves.

~Two Months Oh, yes, and most important of all. The big beautiful baby Oliver is two months old. He weighed 13 pounds, 14 ounces and was 24 ½ inches long at his two month appointment putting him in the 98th percentile for height and weight! Time is flying on our tiny homestead and we are hoping to get lots of garden beds ready and plants in before snow flies. We’ve got about a month before the first frost. I love this time of year.

A gift (to myself)

2011-09-15T06:38:00.000-07:00

I would like to come into my peaceful blog space and write some poetic thoughts reflecting on the year that has been and the year to come.

I would like to write about what it means to be thirty one; creating something beautiful to capture this moment in my life.
But my fingers and heart both feel too open to capture these words.

I’m feeling frazzled, dear friends, frazzled.

And any attempt to write about it, to sum it all up, comes across either as a funny caricature or a too bitter list of complaints.
When in all reality the difficulties of having three children under four years old is leaving me a bit speechless, a bit overwhelmed.
I have often found gifts in saying more with less.
Less words, lots of restraint.
Prune it down, piece it out.
Show something that is there for all of us through a particular lens.

My heart is full of gratitude. My body is tired. These facts feel in conflict with each other.
I have given birth to three big beautiful healthy boys in the last four years. Some times I look at the three of them and feel both extreme love and gratitude and overwhelming fatigue.

I’m going to be kind to myself. Kind to my unwashed hair. Kind to my post-partum body (in writing these words I will try to not compare myself to what I looked like after my first baby or after my second, and my goodness, certainly not what I looked like a year ago, no, I will not.), to my frazzled mind. I am going to be as kind to myself as I would be to a sister, to a friend.

I am going to give myself the gift of submission. I think I have been holding onto too many expectations of myself, living in my mind too much, too many thoughts circling around on themselves. Things have been too tight. It’s easy to say ‘I’m going to let things go’. But, what will I let go? How much? What will that mean? It’s time to let go of the not knowing, the unease, the attempt to find the right words. I’m letting go of all of it.

Somewhere I learned there is beauty in the imperfect.

That, in fact, there is no such thing as perfect.

There is beauty everywhere.

Today I choose to see it.

That is my gift to myself.

First Day of School

2011-09-12T12:23:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago Bayliss headed off for his first day of school. He has done so well adjusting so far and I love how good his teachers are with him. We couldn't be more proud of him. He is loving school and says he would like 'to go everyday even on the weekend'. However, this year, he will be going on Tuesdays and Thursdays for a half day.

I thought I would be a nervous wreck on his first day. But, being at home with the other two little ones kept me very busy and the hours sped by and rather than being nervous I found myself very happy at how quiet it was and how fun it was to read books and do puzzles with 'just' Beckett.

I piled the littler boys into the van to go get Bayliss and when I peeked into his classroom at noon I saw a very happy little boy eating his lunch at a table with all the other little children and my heart swelled up bigger than I knew was possible.

Jay and I both have very 'progressive' ideas about education (we both believe strongly in the importance of the arts and education, student guided learning, learning through real world purpose based activities, and in the last year have enjoyed reading educational theory by John Holt and John Taylor Gatto). This year Bayliss is going to the school where Jay works. He loves his school; he loves going with his dad each day, and loves having me and Beckett and Oliver pick him up from school, he loves his teachers.

We are going to take school one year at a time, reassessing what each child needs and most importantly what our family needs, what we can afford, what, ultimately feels right for us as a family.

This Moment

2011-09-02T05:48:00.000-07:00

Forty One South

2011-09-01T11:01:00.000-07:00

The newest edition of Forty One South went live last night!

It was a pleasure to work with Joe and Nichole Engelbrecht for the Homegrown article this quarter. Hop over and check out the newest edition of the magazine and for locals don't miss the first annual U-pick apples at Joe's Orchard this labor day Monday.

Our family is very excited to go pick some fresh apples, hope to see you there!

Unlisted

2011-08-26T11:46:00.000-07:00

I found a 'list' laying on our bed yesterday. An empty little slip of blank paper. A pencil laying next to it. I started making a list and must have laid down pencil and paper to pick up a small child (or two, perhaps?) and left my 'list' laying there...

It feels good to get things done. But a family can only do so much.

It's tempting to use the word balance to describe the decision between letting things go and getting things done. But balance ins't the right word and I'm not sure what is.

Maybe when I think of the right word I'll write it on that little piece of paper.

Wishing you a peaceful weekend.

A Second Birthday

2011-08-22T11:58:00.000-07:00

Beautiful Little Beckett Boy

Two Years Old. Two Years? Two Years! Where has the time gone.

You're personality is a ray of sunshine. You smile and I can almost hear angels smiling along with you. You funny precious child. You don't like clothes, but you LOVE shoes. You love getting messy and love eating and REALLY love getting messy while you are eating. Oh, beautiful boy, you bring so much joy into the life of our family.

And for this special birthday I wanted very much to make a little something for you. But I didn't make time for making a gift last week. So, instead, I cleaned up a few thrifted gifts I have stashed away for you. And with love and care I cleaned up a funny little music making fish and a push toy.

I made our family's favorite chocolate cake, it's the chocolate cake from Alice Water's the Art of Simple Food and topped it with my sister in law Dawn's amazing recipe for white chocolate cream cheese icing. I love making a decadent cake for the children's birthdays; a beautiful indulgence.

After the last month of nesting in with the new baby and trying to let go of housework (trying, trying, oh, Virgo...) the house was in desperate need of a good cleaning. Cleaning the house for a family birthday party also felt like a celebration (so much easier to clean when not pregnant/so nice now to have a clean house!).

And even though I didn't make time to make any gifts this year, our house was still full of the little birthday gifts I have made in the past.

And the house was very full of the sounds of laughing cousins.

As we all celebrated this delightful child in our lives.

Happy Birthday Beckett!

Not Easy

2011-08-11T11:53:00.000-07:00

Oliver, big little big little baby, two and a half weeks old

I can't articulate,
but I can reach
and just as the words begin to form
they evaporate again.

Oh, the lists, the ideas, the day dreams.

Taking shape in a cloud while pushing a child on the swing

while hanging another round of diapers on the line

while singing a child to sleep

while nursing a baby down

while rocking.

In the place right before
and the places in between sleep.
There are ideas there
just below the surface
left to percolate, left to germinate.

It's not easy letting them lay there
but that is where they will continue to rest
until i'm ready to pull them from under the surface.

It's not time, not yet.

August Shop Sale

2011-08-07T08:25:00.000-07:00

It's time for the biggest sale I've ever had in my online shop.

All prints and stationary will be thirty percent off for the month of August.

Peapod, Fine Art Print
All Prints on Sale for $14!

Yours Truly, Stationary Set
All Stationary Sets on Sale for $7

And, as a special offer to my blog readers and facebook fans I'm offering free domestic shipping when you enter the coupon code freeship1.

~Enjoy Friends!~

A Walk through My Garden

2011-08-02T12:31:00.001-07:00

Grab a glass of iced tea and come on a walk with my through my summer garden.

The first two years in our home we have focused on getting our vegetable beds established. But this spring, my pregnancy took on a fervor to create some shade beds for a perennial shade garden. Started with the little boys in tow in their snowsuits I worked slowly and steadily on these beds. I planted a ‘shady wildflower mix’ in a big box from the farm store and dutifully watered and weeded the tiny seedlings. I wasn’t sure if anything would come of it and couldn’t be more pleased with how it’s come out; this little shade garden has been a joy to watch unfold.

We got some free bricks from a colleague at Jay’s school and I laid the bricks ever so slowly and with much interruption as the boys played outside this spring. I love setting brick; thus confirming the fact that, yes, I am insane.

A section of one of the beds gets full sun for 6 hours a day and I planted lima beans and dwarf sunflowers there this year. The sunflowers were gorgeous in early summer and now they have become living bird feeders; there must be a dozen goldfinches that flutter away each time we make the trek out the back door. My mind is aflutter with possibilities for perennials to plant in this bed either this fall or next spring.

Also new this year is my perennial herb bed. Jay and I removed the sod from the edge of the vegetable bed last fall. We put a couple of inches of compost on it and covered it with about six inches of leaves. This spring I planted cilantro, dill, parsley, chamomile, basil, summer savory, borage, and Echinacea from seed and transplanted bee balm, yarrow, lavender, sage, and stevia. Now I'm reading about making medicinal teas and tinctures and I want to plant so many more herbs...

I love this little herb border, it is so fragrant as I step through/over it past our 16 inch rabbit fence and into the vegetable garden each morning. There is so much to learn about the medicinal and culinary use of herbs that it can feel overwhelming. I think twenty years from now I will be a complete and total herb nerd. I love my introduction to fresh herbs I’m learning from my little herb plot and I am drying them by the basketful.

And then, of course, there is the vegetable garden.

We have had a few bug related losses in the last week and a half. I do bug control by picking bugs off by hand and I guess this time of year if you let down your guard (or are busy having a baby) the bugs are relentless. The squash bugs took down all of the acorn squash and have left a little bit of delicatta. The pole beans look great but have tapered off producing. Not sure if it is the heat, the lack of rain, or if they are just running their course. We were getting ½ - 2 pounds of beans a day for a few weeks and now none. I also removed the cucumbers because something got them and I didn’t want it to spread to the melons nearby. Oh well, I’ll spread some compost and plant a cover crop to cover the ground until I set out my fall planting.

I’ll have to go on about the tomatoes and peppers in another post. We have enough to be eating our fill and have done two batches of sundrieds. I’m thrilled about the melons. I’ll have to write more about them in another post as well. I love this vegetable garden, it’s such a place of sanctuary for me. I go out there every morning to weed or water and always to bring in the little daily harvest and I come back in feeling restored and connected.

You’ll notice there isn’t the normal inclusion of little boys running around in the background of these photos. I’m enjoying these quiet mornings while Jay takes all three of the boys for a walk around the block; Bayliss on his tricycle, beckett in the stroller, and tiny Oliver in the baby carrier. Two weeks until Jay goes back to work…yes, I am enjoying these quiet mornings in my garden while they last.

(and just one picture of Oliver because he’s so amazingly precious)

~~~Thanks for coming on a little tour of the garden with me.~~~

Just One Week

2011-08-01T06:48:00.000-07:00

How did such a long week flutter away so quickly?

The last week has stretched out in some alternate pace of time; a newborn fog.

A sacred time full of adjustments.

Intense, and thankfully temporary, hormones.

We'll enjoy these next two weeks together before Jay goes back to work. Babymooning and getting to know this beautiful spirit named Oliver.

Oliver Emerson Cummings

2011-07-26T11:12:00.000-07:00

~~~Sweet Baby Oliver~~~

Born July 24th at 4 in the morning.
9 pounds 14 ounces 21 1/2 inches long.

Welcomed with open hearts by mama daddy and his two big brothers.

One day at a time

2011-07-18T12:00:00.000-07:00

Yup, I'm still here.

I'd rather have a babe in arms than pesto in the freezer and pickles in the basement.

But here I am 42 weeks and two days pregnant. Sigh...

I have a Muumuu that doesn’t fit and today the heat index is 109.

A two mile walk takes over forty five minutes and it feels as though people are staring.

I've started avoiding eye contact in public for fear that people will comment and it may, finally, be the comment that causes me to act below the kindness I was brought up with.

Never knowing what to say when well intended comments are neither welcome nor helpful.

Perspective and gratitude are helping to lift me out of a funk.

Today I am thankful for ‘perfect’ blood pressure, healthy pregnancy weight gain, and a ‘perfect’ baby heart rate.

Thankful for a care provider that is respectful and on the same page as me; waiting for baby to get things started.

I’m thankful that my husband has time off from work right now. My body is getting worn out so easily.

I’m thankful that this baby boy is teaching me the value of a mid day twenty minute nap. What a sweet beautiful indulgence these naps are.

I'm thankful for a community of women that I can call and help me re-affirm what I feel to be true.

I'm thankful for the serenity that comes with prayer and submission. Faith that I am making the right decisions for me and my baby and washing away all the doubts. And taking it all one day at a time.

And hoping, each day, that this will be the day I meet my sweet baby boy.

Thought Full

2011-07-09T11:59:00.001-07:00

I have so many thoughts fleeting through my 41 week pregnant mind. Oh, if I could just grab a few of them I would have ample material for writing something.

My body is sound and holding up well through these final days but my mind, well, that is another thing altogether.

My mind has melted in the July heat and left me here with Full Thoughts broken into tiny fractured bits; here are a few.

I harvested our garlic and braided it. It is beautiful and smells nice and it feels really good putting our own garlic into our own pesto and our own pickles.

Jay and I are canning. We are canning a lot. We have figured out how to work together to get everything clean and organized while the kids are sleeping…

(Beckett puts on his best “I will knock over your beautiful pickling spices and get yogurt everywhere” face.)

...and how to try to chill out and laugh it off if they wake up before we are finished.

This is not our cat. I repeat this is not our cat. Our neighbors have fed it and we are going to neuter it. Our children love it but this is not and will not be our cat.

But it is really cute.

And our garden is rocking out.

And we love it.

Still Here (and some good stuff)

2011-06-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is a New Moon; send positive labor thoughts my way.

I don't ever remember being so uncomfortable in the last month of pregnancy...or so tired...or so irritated. I am so very ready to meet our baby. I'm trying to take comfort knowing that this baby is much more uncomfotable than the first two because I am carrying much lower. Over the last three weeks I've had real labor pains that last a few hours and then suddenly stop. Each time the baby is much lower the next day. This has been so frustrating, but I'm hoping, perhaps, this will put the baby in a better position as both Bayliss and Beckett were posterior which has made for two exceptionally difficult labors...like I said, send me some positive labor thoughts.

There has been a lot going on around here. Two or three weeks ago we went and picked cherries.

By 'we' I mean, Jay picked cherries while I tried to keep the kids occupied; the ladder is just so hard to resist!

We canned cherry syrup, cherry jam, froze some pie filling and made a pie...oh, that pie.

We've been staying cool on hot days with some simple ideas. Bubbles to the kiddie pool? Big hit!

Ice down the slide! Why not? Also lots of bubbles. I've found you can add just a tablespoon of dish soap to about a cup of water to 'make' bubble solution. And we've been 'making' Popsicles. Though, in this department I am admittedly lame and rely heavily on the watered down apple juice Popsicle.

We've picked blueberries as a family. And sent Jay back to get more. And made blueberry conserves and jam and a bunch of frozen berries for the fall and winter. Blueberries on granola with yogurt is so good. We've made extra yogurt and yogurt cheese as our local milk share has an abundance of milk right now. Our lettuce has tapered off with the excpetion of the oak leaf lettuce which has put up a good fight against the heat and we are getting creative with the yellow squash and harvesting basil by the bushel.

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Oh, and pickles, we've been making pickles as our cucumbers are going crazy. Sorry, no photos...I'm needing to wrap up this blog and go clean something (while this nesting energy is abundant I might as well use it, right?).

And during all of these things I am really wishing, hoping, knowing, the baby will come soon. We have never had time off as a family after a baby is born and it is pretty frustrating to have time off and have no baby yet...just an uncomfortable cranky mama who is trying Really hard to be patient but coming up short on patience and instead (with alot of help from jay) putting up prolific amount of preserves and pickles; here's to hoping those pickles still sound good when I'm not pregnant anymore!

Ready and Waiting

2011-06-22T10:43:00.000-07:00

Diapers have been washed and dried in the summer sun.
Space has been cleared on the dresser.
Familiar little clothes have been cleaned and folded.
Drawers have been filled with tiny shirts and socks.

The house has been cleaned up and closets cleaned out.
Even the basement floor has had a good cleaning.
Toys and diapers mended.
Large bags of well loved items sent off to the thirft store.

Where both of our boys have spent their first months.
A little bed ready and waiting.
Blankets stacked.
A new to us little swing (thank you craigslist!).

Going through all the clothes and blankets
I realize how many things my hands have crafted
for the first two
but for this one a garden was planted.

And as ready as I am to meet you little one
I know there is more waiting first.
Soon you will be here with us
as if you always had been.

Haircuts all around

2011-06-15T11:34:00.000-07:00

The other night I decided we all needed a haircut. Jay cut my hair, I cut Jay's hair and then the boys got a hair cut.

Sweet sensitive Bayliss does NOT like to have his hair cut. But he did pretty well to sit in his chair while I gave him a quick trim (a Popsicle really helps him from getting too upset about the water and the hair and the scissors...poor little guy).

And Beckett got his first trim. Just a little bit off the front and all the sudden he seems like a little toddler instead of a baby.It's amazing how much bigger they seem after that first little snip. I left his angelic locks fully in place in the back.

Now he's a happy little mama's-too-sentimental-to-cut-a-curl mullet wearing toddler.

Luscious Food

2011-06-13T11:54:00.000-07:00

I am consistently overwhelmed by the bounty our veggie patch provides. The quantity of food when it comes into season is always amazing, but perhaps equally amazing if the quality of the food from the garden.

Probably the most frequent question people ask me when they visit our house is, "how many hours a week do you spend in the garden?". That is a really tough question to answer. I am almost always in the yard with the kids and I sneak in bits of gardening here and there. I probably spend about two hours a week without kids in the garden. Maybe it's five hours a week? I really have no idea. This morning I spent about an hour watering with the kids. A job that, sans children, would have surely taken about ten minutes.

But I can say, I spend ALOT of time washing vegetables.

With this amazingly fresh food I usually spend more time washing than I do cooking it. I'm pretty new to this whole gardening thing and I am always amazed at how little cooking these foods need to display their splendor.

Late Spring Sunday Dinner
~New Potatoes With Chickpeas and Dill~
4 lbs. New Potatoes, boiled about eight minutes
2 cups cooked chickpeas (I cook a whole bunch at once and freeze them in quart mason jars to pull out as needed).
2 T. good amish butter, melted
To taste, Fresh chopped dill
serve cold or at room temperature

~Leeks and Cilantro~
2 T. olive oil or good quality butter
1 lb. leeks, chopped
1 small spring onion
heat oil or melt butter in heavy skillet saute onions and leeks until translucent lower heat a bit and add
2 cloves garlic (or more!!!)
cook another 2-3 minutes
remove from heat and allow to cool
when cool add copious amounts of fresh minced cilantro (I probably used 2-3 cups)

Serve with a green salad and enjoy this Luscious Food!

And, speaking of green salad, does anyone have a favorite recipe for salad dressing? I'm in a dressing rut.

Strawberries, this year

2011-06-07T18:16:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we set out to the strawberry patch early one Saturday morning. Buckets in hand, we were all excited to start picking.

We had just gotten started when Bayliss looked up and said, "Maw Maw". Since he says this every time they see a Jeep (which is what my mom drives) or anything that even resembles a Jeep...but I turned around and there was not only Maw Maw Amy but also Jayla and Jinnis, my two beautiful little nieces! Seriously, if we would have tried to plan coming to pick berries at the same time, there is no way it would have worked out. But there we all were on the same Saturday morning. Very, very cool.

My mom had come to pick a bunch of berries for a pot luck dinner they were going to the next day. She was a huge help with the kids, as I'm not really able to be picking berries and have a baby in my lap, at the moment either is a challange but both becomes impossible. So, graciously, my mom let little Beckett sit right in front of her and pick berries the whole time. (Yes, that is a basket on Beckett's head. He refuses to wear a hat but the basket he wears gladly.)

Jay and I had come to pick berries to eat while in season, make jam, and freeze. Last year we picked 40 pounds, which seemed about right for our family for the year. A while into this whole picking berries with four kids adventure we were both realizing it was going at a different pace than last year when just the two of us came on a berry date.

I took the kids down to play in the gravel (because what is more fun than gravel, really) so mom and Jay could do some picking with a little less "help". And then mom took all the kids back to her house so we could finish. We were so thankful for the extra help. We picked about forty pounds again this year. We made five batches of freezer jam.

>

I love bringing that quantity of berries into the kitchen.

Strawberries, this year

And having such abundant plenty in the refrigerator.

Strawberry season goes by so quickly. I love that there are a few weeks of the year when everything gets topped with strawberries. They top every breakfast and follow every meal during those weeks.

All year long when I make the kids a smoothie with the berries in the freezer or top waffles with strawberry jam on a winter morning, I'll remember back to the beautiful May day we spent wrangling children and picking berries.

The berries we didn't turn into jam or eat fresh got quartered and frozen. If you have never done this before it is so simple.

~Freezing Berries~
Rinse berries
Top and quarter berries, add sugar if you like
(I add a sprinkling of sugar to the berries as the accumulate in my big bowl. I think a little bit goes along way)
Lay berries out in a roasting pan and allow to freeze in freezer
When frozen remove with spatula to a freezer safe container.

Strawberries, next year

One thing I love about putting up food is almost as soon as I'm finished I start thinking about what I would like to do next year. The reality is that stawberry season here will always be during the hectic final weeks of the semester at Jay's school and my dreams of making pound cake with fresh whipped cream or making a cheesecake with homemade nuechatel always turn into doing good to get all the jam made and berries chopped and frozen. But, I did find a couple simple things I would like to do next year.

Someone suggested to me that an Amish friend of hers mashes her berries, with a potato masher, the same way you would as if you were going to make jam, adds a bit of sugar and freezes the berries as a puree. I think I am going to do this next year instead of the whole berries. I'm trying to get away from plastics in the kitchen and I think this will freeze better in glass than the quartered berries.

Also, I can't wait to try this strawberry ice cream next year.

Do you have a favorite way of preserving the strawberry harvest? I'd love to stow it away for next year.

A Great Pea Mystery

2011-06-02T18:17:00.001-07:00

One cold spring day outside of a little white house many peas were planted.

A big plot of shell peas were planted in the veggie patch.

And a short row of snow peas along the fence.

The peas grew steadily.

And flowered mightily.

And yet, the peas disappeared before they could ever be brought into the little white house.

A Great Pea Mystery, indeed.

doings and happenings ~in bloom~

2011-05-31T17:47:00.000-07:00

these days are slowly

transitioning

from late spring to early summer

life is in full bloom
full of anticipation for what is soon to come
relishing the gifts of right now

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am honored to have my art work featured by Lynda Heines in the Courier and Press last Sunday. I was thrilled when Lynda contacted me for an interview for her Telling Your Story column. I think many of you who visit my blog would enjoy Lynda's beautiful blog.

Photo by Lynda Heines

There has been so much going on in my garden and my kitchen in the last few weeks and I want oh so much to be sharing some of it here, but time is ticking by so quickly. Jay is done with school for the summer and it is such a welcome relief to have help with the kids. This very pregnant mama is very very thankful for this time together before the baby is born.

I have a craft show coming up this weekend and am in full production mode here. It feels so good to have work coming through my studio! The last few months have been so very busy.

For any locals, come on out to Brinker's this Saturday. Hopefully, I'll have some new work to show this weekend and a shop update coming next week!

This Moment

2011-05-27T05:43:00.001-07:00

A heart full of gratitude

2011-05-25T14:02:00.000-07:00

When I pulled the photos off of the camera card reader yesterday I was overwhelmed with gratitude. I wish I were more of a writer and could fully express with words how incredible it is that so many people were keeping our family close to their hearts and in their prayers last week.

Beckett at the hotel the night before his heart procedure.

Jay and I have both been completely overwhelmed by how amazingly quick Beckett recovered and our deep sense of awe for the abilities of the steady hands of the skilled cardiologist who preformed the procedure at Riley Hospital for Children.

Beckett in the little red wagon at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis.

We've been holding both of these boys a bit tighter in the last week; recognizing both how amazingly fragile and remarkably resilient life can be.

Two little boys, happy to be picking strawberries.

And being more aware than usual of the extraordinary blessings and the richness of our daily life together.

~pretty wonderful~

2011-05-23T14:41:00.000-07:00

just a quick note to let everyone know that Beckett is doing wonderful; his heart procedure couldn't have gone more smoothly.

he was the best little patient ever and is fully back to his regular joyful self.

thank you all so much for your warm wishes, thoughts, and prayers for our beautiful boy!

This week ~close to heart~

2011-05-15T10:29:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking about everything that is going on for our family this week and I'm wondering; how much to share on this blog.

This little snippet and record of our family's life.

This week is graduation at the school where Jay teaches.

This week the next issue of 41 south comes out (on Tuesday!).

This week is Jay's birthday.

This week I'll find time to transplant my next round of seeds, weed, and move dirt around in the garden.

This week diapers will be changed and laundry washed and meals prepared and the usual rhythm of our family life will go on.

This week we will be taking Beckett to Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis to have a heart procedure. Here is the letter I wrote to friends and family and I thought I would also put here to share now and to remember later, when this week is a distant memory.

Dear Friends and Family,

This week on Wednesday May 18th we will be taking Beckett to Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis for a heart procedure on the 19th. We found out last month, after a few trips to the pediatric cardiologist, that Beckett has Patent Ductus Arteriosus (PDA). PDA is a congenital heart defect where the valve that bypasses the heart during gestation doesn’t close after birth as it normally would. This means that some oxygenated blood coming back from Beckett’s lungs is seeping into the pulmonary artery going back to his lungs. (If you want to know more about the procedure, go to this website: https://my-emmi.com/EmmiServer/Intro.jsp and enter this code: 10556250552)

Our pediatrician heard an abnormality, which she thought was a slight heart murmur, during Beckett’s most recent well-child visit. The pediatric cardiologist, after a physical exam and EKG, also thought it sounded like a murmur, but thought it sounded a bit irregular and ordered an ECG test (sonogram of the heart). After the ECG test the pediatric cardiologist explained that Beckett has a large PDA.

Fortunately the PDA has been caught early enough that there has been no permanent damage done to Beckett’s heart or lungs. The PDA will be plugged by a permanent stint that will be placed in Beckett’s heart by catheter. The procedure will take about an hour and a half and Beckett will be under observation at the hospital for the following 24 hours. We will be at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis. They have Ronald McDonald facilities in the hospital for families, like ours, who will be there overnight but not for an extended stay. Jay and I will be going with Beckett for his procedure while Bayliss stays in Evansville for an overnight with Maw Maw Amy and Paw Paw Rob.

We feel blessed that the doctors found this heart defect and that we live in a time and place where our baby’s heart condition can be corrected. Keep Beckett in your thoughts and prayers next Thursday morning. He is such a strong happy little guy that he will have a quick and full recovery.

Love and Hugs,

Jay and Mandy

Please do keep our family in your thoughts and prayers this week. Next week we'll all be happy to have our precious Beckett recovering at home.

This Moment

2011-05-06T06:10:00.000-07:00

Spring Gardening, Part 1; Succession planting and intercropping

2011-05-04T13:16:00.000-07:00

A series? Yes, a series! I’m going to be posting a series of gardening topics this month. Sprinkled between my musing on life, art, cooking, making things, and how cute my kids are there will be gardening topics such as:

~Resourceful Mulching

~An Early May Garden

~Cooking Spring Greens

…And more (well, maybe)!

Without further ado:

Succession planting and intercropping both sound very technical but they are both really easy and are a good way to get more food from your veggie patch.

I thought I’d take you on a tour of one bed in our early May garden to show the intercropping and succession planting in our family vegetable garden.

Here is a 30 inch by 10 foot bed that I overwintered with veggies in the mustard family; over winter we had arugula, kale, mustard greens, a mix of asian green, and kohlrabi all living happily together in this space. I’ve found this spring that overwintered veggies taste remarkably sweet. They also get kind of ‘leggy’ and go to seed pretty quickly. This going to seed early thing is actually an advantage for me. I love saving seed, but as anyone knows who has let a plant go to seed, when plants make it to their last stage of life, the plants get beautiful with large seedpods, flowers, and impressively large greens, but the plants also get HUGE! You can see I’ve staked up a mustard and an arugula plant to let them go to seed. Staking them helps them not take up so much space, but it could also potentially create a nice little habitat for bugs. I’ve removed all the bottom leaves from the plants and mulched around them so the bottom leaves don’t get wet and invite bugs to crawl up and take over.

After staking up the plants I will let go to seed, I scoped out the plants that are still going to be good for eating until the weather gets hot and removed all the plants that have stopped producing (by removed I mean cut down to the root with kitchen scissors and served my family a mix of greens for dinner that night). I transplanted the remaining healthy plants to the edges of the bed and planted yellow squash and cucumbers down the middle of the bed.

I transplanted two fur week old cucumber plants and two yellow squash plants that I started inside in a south facing window. I then planted the rest of the row with cucumber seeds. I’ll let the yellow squash do their prolific thing and stake the cucumbers to a trellis in a few weeks.

)

Now, you’ve seen the succession part of the planting (a bed of mustard family crops that fed us in the fall, winter, and spring will gradually give way to cucumbers and yellow squash). Here is the really fun part…the interplanting. Now, technically, the bed is already interplanted because we have two different families of vegetable in the same bed. But, I love squeezing in as much as possible into every little space, so, I look up companion plants for cucumbers and am happy to find that nasturtium, sunflowers, and radishes all dig living next to cucumbers. So I planted a few of these in the bed as well. By the time the remaining arugula and mustard greens are all bolting in the summer’s heat, I’ll pull them out and there will be sunflowers and nasturtium ready to take their place. Pretty cool, yes?

I love adding all the interplanting plants into the vegetable beds. It reminds me, in so many ways, of drawing. Planting the main crop is like framing in a composition and adding the 'extra' plants is so much like adding the finishing colors and textures to a whole composition. I love thinking of how all the plants will look together.

I think the only thing that gets tricky with four season gardening and interplanting is making sure to rotate your harvest so that you don’t plant things in the same place more frequently than every three years. I help keep track of this on my garden map, where I keep one for each season and can check back to make sure I haven’t planted something in the same veggie family there in the last years.

Happy Spring Planting!

When life gives you lemons...

2011-05-03T11:54:00.000-07:00

...make cucumbers. [This is my broken (argh!) blender warming up the too cool (argh!) too wet (argh!) soil where I planted my cucumbers last Thursday.]

It brought me a bit of joy to use these two things together...

...and it's all in the little things, isn't it?

Easter Morning

2011-04-29T12:17:00.000-07:00

We have had such a busy week this week. Today has been lovely and I'm so ready for the weekend. I thought I'd stop by my poor neglected blog to post some photos from our easter morning.

Bayliss was so curious about the bunny who delivers candy and treats, Beckett, didn't have any questions, but he had a serious grip on his chocolate bunny (we buy these gorgeous bunnies from Lib's a really fun local chocolate store).

The kids got gardening tools and candy in their Easter baskets. The poor little guys have been so patient about waiting to use their new tools. It has been raining non-stop here. I'm usually pretty cool about letting them play out in the rain, but it seems that the thunder and lightening just wouldn't quite in the last two weeks. So, I let them get the paper grass out of their baskets and rake it around the house.

We had dinner with my folks and the cousins got to sit at their special table...too cute, yes?

I'm enjoying the sunshine here today. We have had record rainfall in the last week and a half. This photo made me smile.

It looks like my plants are trying to escape to get outside, doesn't it? I feel the same way and can't wait to set most of them out in the garden this weekend. I'm hoping to post an update on our garden next week; there is so much happening in our garden already. I look forward to sharing a bit of it here soon.

Wishing you a Happy Weekend!

life

2011-04-23T14:31:00.001-07:00

So often i have found capturing moments
through the eye of my camera
gives me sight.
And yet, in the past weeks full to the brim with
this favorite fleeting season of spring
my camera has been silent.

I've savored this time with both eyes and both hands
open and capturing the seconds
the fleeing time
passing somehow both too quickly and too slowly
busy in this season.

~~~Wishing you all a beautiful weekend to celebrate the promise of life~~~

Thrifted Goodness Today YART Tomarrow

2011-04-15T11:24:00.000-07:00

The clouds brought us rain this morning. I packed the kids up in the car to be the pregnant lady waiting at 8:55 for the doors of Goodwill to open, complete with two ecstatic little boys in tow (I can't get over how much they LOVE the thrift store). Both in their matching red rain boots and way too big (thifted of course!) rain coats.

I haven't been to the thrift store in quite some time and was beyond thrilled with what we walked out with:

This clock is beyond fabulous, yes?

And, well, so is everything else in this tub, isn't it...oh yeah, and the tub is pretty awesome too. Yes, those are TWO pairs of huge knitting needles (one pair is wooden!); I'm excited to make some more knitted rag rugs soon. And that little wooden toy, I couldn't believe it when I found that gem hidden at the bottom of the bin of broken plastic misfit toys. I hid it in the cart and am going to stow it away for Beckett's 2nd birthday.

My pregnant nesting self just about flipped when I found these four little cotton treasures in the 50 cent bin (thank you to the Good Will employee who put the enormous fifty cent bin next to the children's toys!) I am such a sucker for little cotton jumpers.

We came home from the thrift store and it was drizzly and a bit sunny. I took the kids puddle jumping down the street. Life is very good.

*********UPDATED Saturday April 16th***************
Due to cold, windy, rainy weather YART has been postponed until Sunday April 17th 10-4. Same location!!! Same fab. hosts!!! I'll be there with Crazy Only At Yart Prices!!!
***************************************************

For all locals be sure to mark your calendar for YART tomorrow. I'll be having my annual YART Only Pricing on all stationary, prints, and originals. YART will be cancelled if it is pouring rain, but if it's just a drizzle the show will go on. You can stay tuned on the YART facebook page or on my facebook fan page.

I'm looking forward to trading with other artists for some new art tomorrow. I've got a whole bin full of frames in the basement just waiting for some black spray paint (painted by Jay not the expectant mother, of course) to add some new art to our walls.

Wishing you all a wonderful Spring weekend friends!

Mixed

2011-04-08T10:18:00.001-07:00

Coming home after a bit more than a week away has left me thankful for the daily and weekly rhythm of our family life.

I'm finding myself with my feet planted firmly in this season of planting and preparing, this year especially, as there is a noticeable change of pace in my daily work, my body doing the important work of nurturing our youngest unborn child.

It's easy to get overwhelmed by housework. By the impossible amount of things that seem to end up on the floor, how quickly the house descends into cluttered chaos, and suddenly how difficult it is to pick up everything (small children included!).

As I slow down I'm relishing this time together with both of my boys. In the past two weeks they have both been growing and learning in huge chunks that are wonderful to watch. So many new things where Bayliss exclaims, "I did it all on my own" and Beckett beaming with toddler pride as he learns in leaps and bounds as well.

Thinking of the new baby I will be holding in three short months, I remember back to two years ago when Bayliss was Beckett's age. How incredibly different these two little boys are. Wondering what joys will this third beautiful little spirit bring to our family.

These days, so often full of trials, exhaustion, and extreme patience; if I can calm my mind with the pitter patter of worries, I can sometimes capture the fleeting wonderful moments of the here and now. Happy little faces call me back to the present moment.

Full to the brim with overwhelming mixed emotions.

Back Home

2011-04-06T04:10:00.001-07:00

Here are a few snippets from the last few weeks:

A trip to Montana to visit family.

A beautiful walk across a frozen lake.

Cherished time with Montana cousins.

Coming Home.

spring in each step

2011-03-16T17:29:00.000-07:00

Our deck; it is old and dilapidated. I think it’s beautiful with the spring rain and a few stray leaves.

The distinctively tropical scent of hyacinth in bloom.

Volunteer sunflowers reassure me with their faith that we are past the last frost of the year…time will tell.

I can’t help but peek into the asparagus trench I dug this weekend to see if the asparagus are up; the ultimate in gardening patience may be waiting two years to see these ferns establish before we harvest the first stalks.

Smiling as I walk past my ‘made in 30 second rain barrel’ to be replaced soon by a new rain barrel also homemade but hopefully more permanent.

Feeling like a super geek for my thorough love of composting; I even love turning this stuff. Someday my children will be old enough to know that not everyone puts the paper towel they used after washing their hands at the toy store into the diaper bag and brings it home to compost…but for now they think this is normal.

And for now I love their enthusiasm for all my craziness.

Overwintered

2011-03-14T16:01:00.000-07:00

Last fall first trimester fatigue and nausea left me feeling completely unmotivated about harvesting, blanching, and freezing our hearty fall greens. Oh, how I lamented their loss as the first heavy frost came and went and the mere thought of looking at greens made me feel sick, much less the cooking smell and work associated with putting food by.

radiant kohlrabi

With pregnancy induced sadness I covered my greens in straw and on one particularly blustery fall evening I covered our fall garden with floating row cover (I fastened the edges down by scooping dirt on top, next year I’d like to make sand or dirt bags to do this job). Much to my surprise almost all of our fall greens have survived through a particularly harsh winter here in US Hardiness Zone 6a.

claytonia, a winter salad green, did very well this winter only a fabric row cover to protect it from freezing temperatures

This weekend we took the row covers off the garden for the winter.

beautiful beet greens!

I know if I would have been feeling better last fall I would have pulled all the beets from their beds. Instead, I left the beets in the ground and after pulling away the dead and brown leaves a few weeks ago a new set of baby beet greens have begun to emerge. After a winter spent in the ground the beets won’t be good for eating, but the fresh greens are a welcome addition to the early spring dinner table.

fresh claytonia and carrots to go with dinner

Some thoughts about an overwintered garden:

tiny mesclun sprouts survived the winter under a bed of straw and fabric row cover

- There are no bugs in a winter garden, pretty awesome.

- I love the pace of the winter garden, there is no rush to put food by, no calling friends to see who wants more greens, just a small amount of fresh food to accompany a simple winter meal of rice and beans or a pot of soup with bread .

- I feel a bit ahead of the spring season and don’t feel in a rush to start cold weather crops indoors. My mustard greens, beet greens, arugula, spinach, lettuce, carrots, and parsnips need no grow light or daily watering insdie; they are outside growing at their own pace with little to no maintenance required.

-Next year, we will have a bigger winter garden!

using vetch as a cover crop protects the soil overwinter and adds nitrogen to what will be our 10 x 12 foot tomato garden.

I hope you don’t mind if most of my posts in the next few weeks are of the gardening sort. A friend pointed out to me a few days ago that gardening may be my ‘nesting’ this pregnancy. I think she is right. Here I’ve been wondering why I haven’t been having the urge to pick up the knitting needles or organize the closets; I’ve been too exhausted at the end of the day to do anything except snuggle on the couch with my man. Everyday it hasn’t been raining I’ve been busily moving dirt, compost and sod. I’ve been creating new garden beds, circling beautiful heirloom vegetables in seed catalogues, and reading everything I can get my hands on about growing fruit in small spaces. Yes, I think the garden is my place to nest this spring. I hope you don’t mind indulging me by reading about my muddy adventure.

our early spring garden

I’d love to know, do you have any garden plans this year?

Children’s Handmade Birthday Gifts, A Collage Art Box

2011-03-08T05:54:00.000-08:00

I love making birthday gifts for little kids. When designed and created with the child in mind, the handmade gift can become an expression and celebration of the unique personality of that particular child. Creating gifts often serves as a time of reflection for me to think about the child and his or her growth in the past year.

With thoughts of my little niece Jinni bringing a smile to my face, I created a special box for Jinni's enthusiastically creative soul. I’ve had the opportunity to create art side by side with hundreds (maybe thousands?) of children and I’ve never seen a child immerse themselves in their creative work the way Jinni does. One day I was astonished to see her energetically ripping apart a drawing she had just finished. After ripping up the drawing she started taping the pieces onto the top of a finished painting. Be still my heart; a confident little collage artist.

Both Jinni (5) and her sister Jayla (8) love doing art time and they crack me up that of all my art supplies, their favorite tool in my collection is the heart shaped hole punch. I got this punch at a garage sale years ago and never could I have fathomed the joy it would bring to these little girls.

A few weeks ago I put together a little collage art box for Jinni for her fifth birthday. Of course, I had to include a heart shaped hole punch. I also got some sparkle paper, glue stick, scissors, and puffy stickers; the type of stickers my heart always yearned for as a girl. I made a few little sketch books to for this prolific artist and put all the contents in a box.

I didn’t get any pictures of her opening her gift but if you can picture a beautiful little blonde five year old girl exclaiming “GGGLLUUE STiiiicK!” then that will be a happy image to end on. Yes, the box was well received, but perhaps the best gift of all comes to her Aunt, who is so proud to watch this little lively girl enter her fifth year.

This Moment

2011-03-04T06:03:00.000-08:00

And the winners are

2011-03-03T05:36:00.000-08:00

Thank you all for entering the giveaway last week. I enjoyed reading through your comments about what you are looking forward to about spring. What fun to send out a package to three of you!

Oh Happy Day Bunting
Heidi-
"What lovely prizes! How sweet of you!
I am looking forward to new beginnings in many things. New gardens, new opportunities, and new places for me to do things I really want to do. There is a healing to spring, and I look forward to this one the most."

Tiny Book Ornament
Jodi-
"Oh, I will miss you. But I understand. And about Spring? Well, I would love to be able to walk my dog. We've both been so lazy this winter. It's just too cold to go out regularly -- especially when there's a warm fire burning inside. So that's what I'm looking forward to -- long walks."

Snow Day Collage
Hallie-
"I am looking forward to adding new chicks to our little family! :)"

If you could all send me your snail mail address to my email [mandy dot gerth at gmail dot com] that would be stellar.

Rhythm of the Home, Spring 2011

2011-03-01T05:22:00.000-08:00

It’s a cold damp windy day here in Southern Indiana.

It’s hard to believe Spring is knocking; I can only hear her right now if I listen ever so closely. The days are stretching out with a welcome addition of sunshine finding its way in. The birds are singing, daffodils and hyacinth are tentatively peeking out from their winter retreat. There is a quiet excitement in these very early spring days (Yes, I know the equinox isn’t until the 20th, but for me Spring begins in March, February is over, it’s Spring!).

It was a pleasure to sit down last month on a snowy day and think of the spring vegetables that will be parading through our kitchen in just a few months. With thoughts of the first spring sprouts in mind, I designed this Spring Vegetable Memory Set for the Spring 2011 edition of Rhythm of the Home. The PDF to make your own memory set is available for free in my article.

It was fun to pour through our family garden photos from last year. The vegetables seem impossibly big and my children seem impossibly small. Oh…seasons…and…time…

On this first day of March I am finding my heart full of gratitude both for the promise of Spring and the nourishing community being fostered through sites such as Rhythm of the Home. I find comfort knowing there are so many families seeking rhythm, creativity, simplicity, and beauty in their lives. I’m looking forward to sitting down with a cup of tea to pour over the latest inspiring edition of Rhythm of the Home.

Forty One South

2011-02-28T04:48:00.000-08:00

I am very excited to announce the debut of a project I have been fortunate to be a part of for the past two months. Forty One South is a quarterly grassroots arts and culture magazine based in Evansville, IN.

It’s been amazing to see this project start as an idea and transform into an online magazine. I feel overwhelmingly blessed to have met all the talented people involved in the project. We all have a palpable sense of excitement about the magazine and the potential it has for creating community in our hometown.

I’m honored to be the Editor for the Home Grown section of the magazine. Each quarter Home Grown will feature local farmers, cottage industry businesses, and craftspeople. For those of you who are regular readers here on my blog, you know that local food and hand made small businesses are something I am passionate about.

Photo by T.j. Byrd

For this debut of the magazine I interviewed Gina Robinson of Rose Hill Dairy. In addition to being a passionate farmer and small business owner, Gina is a mother of two small children; Gina’s children are the same age as mine.

One cold muddy day in February we were quite the crew headed out to meet the cows in the pasture with four children under the age of four in tow!

Luckily, the talented photographer T.j. Byrd braved the muddy pasture to shoot photos for the article. I have gotten so comfortable with using my own photos to accompany my words here on my blog; working with T.j. was a pleasure and a welcome change. Her photos captured the beauty of the pasture, even on a very grey winter day. She also captured the beautiful farmer that runs the dairy.

(
photo by T.j. Byrd

For this quarter, I also interviewed the lovely ladies behind Soap Solutions.

It was a fun afternoon going out to talk to Mary and Tracy. I was so impressed, not only by the wonderful all natural smells in Mary’s home where the two friends get together on the weekend for their ‘soaping’, but also by the amount of FUN these women have together.

Photographing Mary and Tracy’s soap was a fun job. It felt very similar to photographing artwork; so many colors and textures in these beautiful naturally dyed bars of soap!

In the past weeks Jay and I have been working with Jenny Smith, the editor and publisher of the magazine, to get everything ready for the website to go live. It feels so good to see it all up and running. This project wouldn't have been possible without Jay. He has been the web builder and we technician and has been very patient with us as we decided to change just one more thing or add just one more (or more) section to the magazine We are all so excited to see what comes of this project.

When you get a chance, I would be honored if you read the articles I wrote for the magazine as well as the rest of the articles in our first issue. There is so much goodness packed into this first issue; including amazing musicians, artists, poets, and local food! And if you’ve only got a minute to spare right now, I can’t encourage you enough to check out Beau Ratcliff’s hilarious short video on the Beau Noes section of the magazine; it’s got me smiling just thinking about it.

Welcome to everyone who is stopping by my blog today for the first time from the Forty One South website.

And to all of my regular readers and commenters, I want to send you a sincere thank you. I have never thought of myself as much of a writer, photographer, or designer, but in the past year you have all given me such meaningful and positive support here that I am beginning to see paths open up to me that would have been impossible for me to see myself going down without your words of encouragement; Thank You All So Much!

A Giveaway, Until I return next Monday

2011-02-22T10:17:00.000-08:00

Friends,

I'm not going anywhere.

I'm here, at home, with my precious little ones.

But I need to take a blogland break; it seems my dance card with February has become quite full.

I am excited to share the details of this full-ness with you all on Monday the 28th. Ah, the last day of this big little month of February.

Until then I would like to offer a little giveaway here for you friends.

I still have the Wintery Mix Sale going on in the 'ole shop.

I'd like to offer two winners in my giveaway:

One person will recieve an Oh Happy Day Bunting

One person will recieve a Tiny Book Ornament.

and if this original is still in my shop on Monday, I'll give it away to a lucky third winner.

What a fun way to celebrate this last week of winter, yes? Leave a comment below for a chance to win. What to comment about? How about what you are looking forward to the most this spring.

Feel free to enter everyday until Monday.

Until Spring,

Mandy

Thank you all for your comments, winners will be announced at the end of the day Tuesday March 1st

Sorry about that, winners announced tonight, Wednesday March 2nd.

Mysteries-Frustrations-Seasons

2011-02-15T05:57:00.000-08:00

For all the things you refuse to eat

I find you eating some of the strangest things.

Just when I’m down about the repetition of house work

A bit of beauty catches me off guard.

The piles of things that seem to stack up often

And the piles I try to steal moments for

Enjoying the food we eat that is home grown

And laying plans for the time to come.

Good Ole Granola

2011-02-10T11:53:00.000-08:00

Twice a week I mix up a batch of granola for the two little boys and the man in my life. I'm not a granola eater. A slice of toast, a cup of coffee, and a bit of fruit suits me just fine.

The guys need a bit more in the morning. After a few years of trying out different granola recipes I've come up with one of my own that suits everyone in our house. It suits me because it's incredibly easy and fun to make with little helpers. It suits Bayliss because it's plain and simple, he has some serious texture aversions, and it suits Jay and Beckett because they are both of the 'if it's food i'll eat it' camp.

Here is my recipe for

Good Ole Granola

6 C oats
2 C nuts and/or seeds (I usually use slivered almonds)
1 t salt
1 t cinnamon

1 C oil or melted butter
1/2 C honey
1/2 t vanilla

Place the dry ingredients in a broiling pan and mix throughly with a spoon or your hands. In a small bowl mix wet ingredients, whisk to incorporate. Pour wet ingreiendts over dry and stir until mixed through.

Bake at 275 for 25 minutes stir and bake for another 15 minutes.

Served with yogurt and fruit, it's so easy to put together it's sure to become a staple in your kitchen. Do you have a favorite breakfast recipe? I'd love to try something new.

Tiniest Knits

2011-02-07T14:57:00.000-08:00

I've finished my first little bit of tiny knitting for our July baby. Of course, a baby born in Southern Indiana in July won't have a huge need for knit items, but in these cold winter days I do find myself wanting to knit something for this newest member of our family.

I picked up Natural Nursery Knits from our local library. It's one of those wonderful books that leaves you wanting to make every single project in the book. This little rattle would be such a sweet fast little toy to make.

The directions for the Hat and Boots were easy to follow and so small that even on tiny size 1 and 2 needles, they worked up pretty fast. I used some organic bamboo sock weight yarn I had left over from a little kimono I made for Beckett's coming home outfit (I can't believe I didn't write a blog post about that yarn and kimono; I'm sure I'll find that sweet little kimono on a cleaning out the basement nesting frenzy soon). There is enough of the bamboo yarn left to make another little something...you've got to love how far yarn goes when you are making clothes for the smallest of the small.

I think you'll be seeing more finished projects from this book coming soon!

This Moment

2011-02-04T05:42:00.001-08:00

Snowsuit Gardening

2011-01-31T11:51:00.000-08:00

Thank you all for your warm words of congratulations on my last post. We are so excited to be welcoming a third (and final) baby into our family this summer. We will be finding out the gender in a few weeks...I am positively bursting with excitement to find out if we will be a family with three little boys or two boys and a little girl; it will be so much fun either way (there is a fifty fifty chance I'll be stopping by the yarn store on the way home from the ultrasound to buy pink and purple yarn!).

It's been awhile since I've done a garden post. There are things happening in the garden, I just keep forgetting to take photos. We have overwintered carrots and quite a bit of spinach left, with little baby arugula and mustard greens looking healthy and doing well all ready to grow bigger as soon as things warm up.

We had some beautifully sun shiny weather this weekend with highs in the 40s and you better believe I had the kids outside as much as possible. It felt so good to be outside with them for longer than twenty minutes at a time.

I remembered to take the camera outside with me this morning and got a few photos of what will someday be our shade garden. Last fall we doubled the size of our vegetable garden. I'm so excited to start planting in this newly expanded garden this spring. With the vegetable garden in it's 'final' size I thought it was time to start making some beds for shade plants.

I started by removing the tape from a bunch of cardboard boxes. Bayliss and Beckett helped out by shredding a piece of tissue paper we found at the bottom of a box.

And Bayliss made me smile as he used the boxes to make a 'road'.

Then we all layered up our winter clothes and headed out to make the new shade beds.

We started by spreading out a layer of cardboard next to a mound of fall leaves and straw I piled up by the garage in autumn. Next I watered the cardboard with the garden hose.

Then we covered the cardboard with some compost.

I then raked about half of the big mound of leaves and straw out over the cardboard and started covering it with more compost. Eventually, I'll add about 4-6 inches of dirt and compost on top of the straw but today the littles needed to warm up and get some food. I'm not sure if this big mound of straw and leaves will decompose and be ready to plant in the spring, i'm thinking probably not, in that case we'll set out our shade garden next fall.

The February and March days to come will mostly be cold but...I'm looking forward to more snowsuit gardening on these warmer days that get tucked into late winter like a forgotten gift.

Really Really Really Big News!

2011-01-27T16:49:00.001-08:00

It's the biggest best kind of news of all...

...we will be having a beautiful Third Baby in early July!

Don't Forget

2011-01-24T05:45:00.000-08:00

Here are some little bits I hope not to forget as my little ones grow.

You call it 'sugarminn' and you love drawing in what's left after eating your toast.

I love how much you love these 'trains with faces'.

Watching the birds eat our bread crusts; you are full of joy.

Your favorite snack is peas, frozen, straight from the freezer.

Instead of 'yes' you say 'woof'.

I hope to keep these moments with you both on a shelf in my heart, always, and never forget.

This Moment

2011-01-21T05:27:00.000-08:00

Daily Bread; a Recipe for The Big Batch

2011-01-20T06:14:00.000-08:00

I’ve been making our family bread now for over a year. At first making all of our own bread seemed daunting. But I’ve come up with a system that works for us and I’ve wanted to share it here for a while (over a year!). Each time I feel ready to share the recipe I realize there is another adjustment I want to try or that maybe I need to test the recipe just one more time.

I realize that I am a bit afraid to post a recipe and not have it come out right for someone. I would hate to think that my inadequate instructions or incomplete recipe would mean that someone undertaking the ambitious task of making a Big Batch of bread would have a cooking failure due to my instructions. I’ve put a lot of care into the following recipe and hope it is all-inclusive for someone who has never made yeast-risen bread before. If you have any questions about the recipe or if you make the recipe and have suggestions on ways I can alter or improve the instructions please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Equipment

Very Large Bread Bowl
I have a 13-quart stainless steel bowl, I can’t recommend it enough. I knead the bread In The Bowl! This trick is so key and was recommended to me by my mother in law who is an expert bread baker. The bowl comes in handy all through the year for everything from making bread, to enormous batches of pesto, crushing berries for jam; it’s a great addition to the kitchen.
Potato Masher
A hand masher is easy to clean and does a quick job of mashing the potatoes in this bread. I got mine at the thrift store.
Measuring Cups and Spoons
Colander
Six 8 x 4 inch bread pans
Kitchen Scale
I have a Cuisenart kitchen scale. It was a gift from my mother in law and I love it. It is very useful when making multiple loaves of bread. I made six loaf batches for a year without using a scale. It’s not a necessity, but it is a very useful tool.
Spatula
Heavy wooden spoon

Ingredients

4 Medium potatoes
7½ C warm potato water (saved back from boiling potatoes)
1 C oil
7½ t salt
½ C flax meal
6 T local raw honey
3 T blackstrap molasses
3 T yeast
½ C vital wheat gluten
10 C whole-wheat flour
5-10 C unbleached white flour

Directions

Peel cube and boil potatoes in a generous (about 8 cups) amount of water until potatoes are tender 6-12 minutes.
Drain potatoes in colander. Catch potato water in a bowl (if you forget this step, no worries, just use regular warm water).
Measure out six and a half cups of potato water into your Very Large Bread Bowl; set aside to cool.
Measure out one cup of potato water into a large bowl, add potatoes, mash. I love my hand masher; you can also mash the potatoes either in a blender or with an immersion blender. Add oil, salt, and flax meal to the potato mixture.

When the water in the Very Large Bread Bowl is less than 130 degrees (or not too hot to stick your finger into for a few seconds without it being uncomfortable) add honey and blackstrap molasses, stir to dissolve, now measure out your yeast and add to the beautiful warm dark water in your Very Large Bread Bowl. Gently ‘scatter’ the yeast over the water rather than dumping it in. This will make your yeast dissolve quickly. Allow yeast to rest and dissolve for about five minutes. When yeast is dissolved, add ½ cup vital wheat gluten, and 10 cups whole-wheat flour. Use a big wooden spoon to stir. Starting one cup at a time, add your white flour, stirring between the additions of each cup of flour. I usually add about five cups before the bread is ready to need.

I think the easiest mistake to make is to add too much flour right here! I really wish I could have you all in my kitchen for this step; after a few times making this you’ll find about how much flour it takes to make your bread. As soon as the dough seems not too sticky, as in it doesn’t make a horrible mess of sticking to your hands when you try to knead it, that’s enough flour. Knead in your Very Large Bowl for 5-10 minutes, adding small amounts of white flour as necessary. Cover with a damp cloth and allow to rise in a warm place for 1¼ hours.

Punch down.

Make into loaves. If you don’t have a kitchen scale, start by separating the dough into halves. Divide each half into thirds. The dough should come up to fill the pan about 2/3 of the way. If it seems like you have way too much dough, take some dough out of each loaf, when this happens I like to shape the extras into rolls, I freeze them on a cookie sheet and then store them in a freezer bag ready to by thawed out and baked when we want some fresh bread with dinner. My mother in law suggested frying bits of left over dough in a shallow amount of oil and serving with honey; I must try this in my next batch!
If you have a kitchen scale each loaf will weigh about 1 1/2lbs. If you have extra dough set aside and store for rolls or fry for the kiddos.

This is the height of my bread when it goes in the oven you can see in the next picture that it will continue to rise while baking.

Place in well-greased bread pans, let rise about 30 minutes (I set my timer for 20 minutes, turn my oven on to 375 then and then set it for another 10 minutes).
Bake bread at 375 F about 30 minutes. We store two loaves in fabric bags in our bread box, the remaining four loaves are stored in freezer safe plastic bags in the freezer.

Notes

On Quality Ingredients
I think most people who frequent this little blog space of mine are fellow whole grains enthusiasts; I know I’m preaching to the choir to extol the merits of using organic ingredients. We all do what we can with our budget. I’ve found that in addition to knowing organic flour is good for my family and our planet it makes incredibly better bread and is worth the price on our tight grocery budget. We buy flour in 50# bags from our local food co-op, we get a sweet discount and the price comes out being comparable to good brands of conventionally grown flour at the ‘regular’ grocery store. In many parts of the country local honey is prohibitively expensive to use for baking, if this is the case where you live you can substitute 6 T. of the sweetener of your choice. Currently I use Canola oil for baking bread. I’m currently working within my budget to use as many good ingredients as possible. Unfortunately, organic oils haven’t found their way in there yet. I use olive oil as our budget allows; it makes truly excellent bread.

On Substitutions
Probably the best thing about making your own bread is how easy and rewarding it is to change things up in a recipe.
Here are some things that have worked fabulously in this recipe:

~Substituting 1 c. chickpea, teff, buckwheat, soy, or other super high protein flour for 1c.of the whole wheat flour
~Adding about ½-1 cup sesame seeds, cracked wheat, uncooked oats, sunflower seeds or other interesting ‘crunchy’ ingredients.

Here are some things that have NOT worked so well (for me):

~ I’ve tried King Arthur’s white whole wheat flour to see if we would like it instead of our regular whole wheat flour. I love this variety of flour in Irish soda bread and quick breads but I don’t care for it in yeast-risen bread; the bread comes out kind of ‘doughy’.

~Leaving out the white flour. I tried many variations on this recipe that didn’t use any white flour at all. It gets a doughy, icky, flavor.

~Leaving out the vital wheat gluten. Don’t forget the Vital Wheat Gluten! Together with the potatoes, the wheat gluten works wonders in making this otherwise heavy bread into a nice light loaf for everyday eating. I started increasing the amount of whole-wheat flour in the recipe after adding gluten to it; if you leave it out you will have a heavy loaf!

I look forward to hearing from you on variations you make to the recipe and would love to try them and add them to the list!

Knit Rag Rug

2011-01-19T06:24:00.000-08:00

~~~I've been pining for some knitting in the evening lately.~~~

~~~Using old sheets fits my budget better right now than the types of lovely spun cottons and wools I like to knit with.~~~

~~~I've been wanting to replace this questionable rug I made for our bathroom last year.~~~

~~~We've been appreciating the crocheted rag rug I made last summer.~~~

With these things in mind I set out to knit a rag rug for our bathroom.

I ripped three old sheets using these instructions.

I casted 25 stitches onto size US 15 needles and stitched this rag rug up in seed stitch. I'm really happy with the texture that the seed stitch made for the rug; perfect for sopping up lots of water.

If I make another handknit rag rug I will definitely be getting a very large circular needle. My stitches kept slipping off the back of my needles as I tried to stuff the whole width of a rug onto them. I'll also either use a needle sized larger than 15 or I'll rip my sheets into thinner strips. I love how tightly the rug came out but it was a bit hard on the hands to get the material onto this size needle.

Nothing like a new little something for the house. Especially when it was made from rags and makes such a cozy place for precious little toes.

Winter-y Mix, A Shop Sale!

2011-01-12T11:40:00.000-08:00

I've got a few winter-y items available at a discount price in my shop right now:

Peace to You Cards Sets, 25% off.
Available in sets of 5, 10, or 20.

Snow Day, Originals 5 x 7 Collage Series
50% off!

I loved making these last winter and have been happy that two pieces from the series have found a home in the last year. I'm offering them up at a super sale price in hopes of these little houses finding a new home.

Tiny Book Ornament
Was $15, Now $10

Oh Happy Day Bunting
Was $15, Now $10.50

The Winter-y Sale will go on as my inventory lasts or until the Feb. 28th.

I'm very excited to be in the early stages of making some new work for the 2011 spring craft fair season. It always feels good to make way for the new in the new year!

Putting it by

2011-01-09T12:18:00.000-08:00

This week it felt good to be back in my familiar weekly routine. I wish there was a way to take the best parts of the day and collect them, putting them by, letting the others wash away, and savoring them later.

Here are little bits of my week I cherish.

Making a list everyday, checking most of the things off and deciding some things can be left undone.

Daily home cooking; I love the distinct sound of the pressure cooker on the oven.

Daily tasks holding hidden pieces of joy. Feeling totally exhausted and like the day was a bit of a blur, also trying to hang onto the best parts.

Enjoying the bounty of summer we worked hard to put up last summer.

A little bit embarrassed by how much I love our new vacuum cleaner; a vacuum that actually works, well, this changes everything doesn’t it? And is it just me or does this box looks a lot like a Nikki McClure illustration?

Is there anything from your week you would love to put up and store away, saving the bounty of now for a different season?

For the Cousins (and second cousins)

2011-01-05T05:41:00.000-08:00

Last year I made an ornament for our four nieces and our cousins’ children; 18 little birds in all. You may think making 18 of anything would be a stress, but I genuinely enjoyed making that little flock of birds. I wanted to do something similar this year.

One night Jay and I worked together to embellish these little matchboxes. He cut the strips of vintage paper and the little scalloped rectangles and I glued them onto the boxes and wrote the year and each child’s name on the box.

I got the idea to make a container for these ornaments (which I made for the holiday craft show season this year) when we were getting the ornaments out for our tree this year. This is the first year we have had all the ornaments that my mother saved back for me from my childhood. You can imagine that two whole boxes of childhood treasures stored away, many of which with the dates on them, all of them with a story to go with them, well, this really got me thinking about the ornaments I want to hand down to my own children someday. I love seeing the dates on the ornaments in our collection and it makes me wonder if they were stored well if perhaps, maybe, these little things could make it through many generations.

With these thoughts in mind Jay and I made these little boxes, one for each of the cousins…hoping they will be stored away for most of the year to grace a tree during the Christmas season.

I’m already thinking about what I want to make for all the cousins next year. I’ve got these lovelies bookmarked. They would be so perfect with the child’s name and the year on the back of each one.

Resolute.

2011-01-01T14:36:00.000-08:00

~Twelve Photos~One Each Month~2010~

Thinking about the changes in our family in the last year

and the changes to come

Shining

in this New Year.

Looking though the photos and marveling at how much the children have grown.

How sometimes the days seem to mesh together and yet how slowly through the seasons things change, accumulating a place their own throughout the year.

How each day brings a series of chores that were so foreign just three short years ago and now seem so natural.

Sitting down and making time to do something creative. Nourishing my sense of self to help sustain the person I strive to be.

I am surprised in these darkest days of the year by how much light fills our days for the majority of the year, how much time outside, how much time together.

How interesting that I don’t think of myself as much of a cook and yet, there in these photos lay the testament to a daily ritual of food preparation often with precious little hands helping.

Looking back, I see the big markers of the year; a first birthday, a fifth anniversary, a little boy in his third year so full of wonder and awe. But more than these ‘big’ days I see the little things, the bare feet in dry grass, the seeds being sown, the table being set, diapers hung to dry; laughter and the tears echoing through a year. I see this beautiful tapestry of days and I feel overwhelming full and humbled by the bounty in my life.

This bounty leaves me feeling resolute; ready to face the changes and challenges in the new year while welcoming the comfort in the shifting uniformity of these days.

Warmest of Wishes for 2011.

For the Grandparents and Great Grandparents

2010-12-30T06:30:00.000-08:00

This year our whole family collaborated on a project for the granparents in our family. I did quite a bit of brainstorming to come up with something that the kids would be able to help with.

I decided on a festive little Christmas pillow.

With an epically splendid mess the boys painted an old sheet with fabric paint. Then, I cut the rectangles and Jay cropped our Christmas card photo added text printed it out and ironed it onto the pillow. Bayliss and I sewed them together at the sewing machine (he loves opening the door to the bobbin holder while sitting on my lap), flipped them right side out (producing major ooohs and aaahs from the three year old crowd), stuffed them with filling (which led to a whole ‘play pillow batting snow’ episode from the little guy), and sewed the little remaining bit up by hand (still playing in the eco batting 'snow').

It was really fun to make a little something that we all participated in.

Hopefully we've got a new tradition starting here.

Magic Morning

2010-12-27T11:52:00.000-08:00

Santa ate his plate of cookies and his flying reindeer ate all but the last bit of carrot.

A wonderful Christmas gift, the littlest one slept in until 7 and his brother woke up at 7:30. In our house, this is 'sleeping in'. Jay and I were very thankful for this first gift of the day.

With wonder each little boy took his time opening the treats in their stockings. Their stockings were stuffed full of yummy things to eat including chocolates and citrus fruits.

Jay and I settled in with our respective cups of coffee and tea to watch this beautiful show unfold. Santa got our message that we wanted his gifts to either be handmade or previously loved by other little ones. What a treat to see he brought these matching little cowboy hats.

With wonder and excitement the gifts were opened from Montana...

...including many beautiful handmades from Grammy Sue.

My parents came over in the morning and gave the boys a gift deserving it's own post. My brother and sister in law came over with their two little girls and we had a lovely afternoon together.

We get snow on Christmas here about once every five years or so. Just rarely enough to make it extra magical.

Christmas Card Photos - the outtakes

2010-12-21T09:16:00.000-08:00

Christmas Card Outtakes, 2010

When my mom stopped by last week with matching Christmas pajamas for the boys I knew this would be the outfit of choice for our annual Christmas Card Photo.

And indeed, one morning I set out on the somewhat impossible task of taking a photo of two children sitting next to each other.

Last year I gave Bayliss a cookie to help him sit still for the photo shoot. With last year's inspiration dancing through my head I gave the boys both a candy cane for the shoot, note to self next year, candy cane photo shoot not a great idea. But cute photos were taken nonetheless:

It's hard to smile when your sole focus is a candy cane.

We really like these candy canes.

My candy cane is gone, I'm outta here. Sweet I found some of my brother's candy cane on the floor, Okay I'll come back.

I'm outta here too.

Closed Eyes.

We are totally over this.

Sillyness Abounds.

Happy Solstice!

Whats crafty and cute and green and red ALL OVER??

2010-12-15T18:02:00.000-08:00

My house, that's what.

Would you like to join me in some snippets of fun creating at our house yesterday?

Getting out all the red and green markers, pencils and crayons.

Bayliss and Beckett had fun making wrapping paper for their cousin's Christmas gifts by drawing on some thrifted sheets of paper. Bayliss was totally adorable exclaiming each child by name as he carefully drew on each piece of paper, "This one's for Jayla. This one's for Jinnis." On and on he went with such enthusiasm for creating and giving that it made my heart well up.

And our little Beckett was happy to do what his brother was doing. There are few things sweeter than those chubby fingers using those chubby little crayons.

I don't usually try to do two crafting/making activities in the same morning with these very little tykes. I had another painting project waiting on the sidelines for the afternoon. But when we were finished Bayliss was so excited about continuing I got out another project.

We used an old sheet and some fabric paint. This special cloth will be used to make little gifts (I'll post pictures of the finished project after Christmas) for friends and family.

I was thinking it would be best to get everything totally ready before we got started because I knew this would get really messy really fast.

Beckett doing a happy naked dance in anticipation of the fun to come.

Working together they made a beautiful creation.

Messy and fun, indeed.

With a trail of red and green all the way to the bath tub!

They had so much fun with this silly project. Over the next few days when Beckett is asleep and Bayliss and I will sew this special cloth into little gifts.

Wishing you joyful creating this holiday season.

let it snow

2010-12-14T06:51:00.000-08:00

the snow came down quietly all day Sunday.

our two excited tots watched as the world turned white.

jay and i made a big pot of hot chocolate and drank way too much of it.

we did some christmas crafting all four of us together, it's always my favorite when Jay is there for family art time.

Beckett got to go out and play but only for a short while. The wind was up, the sun was no where to be seen, and despite a snow suit the little babe looked quite frozen after just a few minutes.

Jay stayed out and pulled Bayliss around on the 'sled' (yes, that's a plastic lid with a piece of string attached). While Beckett and I watched from inside.

Bayliss had so much fun.

Snow Magic.

Merry Making

2010-12-12T08:14:00.000-08:00

Oh December
As children wait with joy
Each day bringing us
Closer to Christmas Day

(stolen moments during nap yield bits of play vegetables)

I Look and see
All these little bitty things
Being made
And all the things that won't

(smiling as I notice a morning kid craft mysteriously ended up in the clean laundry)

Full of Joy
In these moments
A little bit here a little there
Merry Making in such plenty

(little piles of simple gifts accumulate for special little people)

Simple Goodness

2010-12-08T15:46:00.000-08:00

Here are a few snippets of simple goodness my camera has been kind enough to remind me were a part of my day today.

A bit of garden fresh vegetables dug from the frozen earth.

Two slimy happy little people getting over what Jay and I have decided is "the never ending cold bug".

Re-arranging little spaces for play.

Appreciating a bit of handmade Christmas decor goodness.

Loving the little treasures passed on to our family from Jay's side of the family...

...and from my side of the family as well.

Soaking in the sun streaming through freshly cleaned windows.

I would love to know was there a bit of simple goodness that sticks out from your day.

This Moment

2010-12-03T05:51:00.000-08:00

Rhythm of the Home

2010-12-01T05:23:00.000-08:00

I am very honored to have an article published in the winter edition of Rhythm of the Home.

I haven't had a chance this morning to look through many of the articles but the whole winter edition looks full of beautiful simple ideas for making meaningful arts and crafts with children in the winter months. I look forward to spending some time checking out the magazine in the upcoming weeks.

There is also a giveaway coinciding with the launch of the winter edition of the magazine. I donated a Peace to You Print. There is a beautiful collection of handmade goods available in the giveaway.

On the Eve of December

2010-11-30T16:43:00.000-08:00

I'm excited to be in a bit of a making frenzy over an upcoming show this weekend.

I've got a good problem here, I'm out of tons of inventory. The last couple shows have depleted my stock...a very good problem indeed. So as Jay and I print and package, as I cut and sew, I'm really excited about the upcoming show this weekend.

After this weekend, all spare moments will be dedicated to the annual flurry of making Christmas gifts for family. I'll have to have all that handmade goodness sent in the mail by Dec. 16th to get to Montana in time for Christmas morning. So I'm setting a deadline to get all parent, in-law, neices, and cousin gifts done by the 16th so I can go full steam ahead on handmade gifts for our two little elves.

I've got big plans friends. But in reality, these plans haven't even come down to earth in the form of an actual list. There is always quite a bit of scaling back for me every year as my handmade daydreams have a way of running away with themselves. But if you don't mind indulging me a bit, I'll share a bit of what I'm planning next week when this last show is over.

I also realized on Monday that 'the big online shopping day of the year' came and went with me neglecting to have a sale of some sort in my online store.

So, to celebrate all of us out here thinking my goodness, is it really almost December, I'm going to offer a %15 off total purchase from my online store from Dec. 1st - Dec. 16th.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Use coupon code: decemberlove
for 15% of your total purchase in my online store
Dec.1st - Dec. 16th.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wishing you all the best on this Almost December Eve.

Giving Thanks and Joyful Food

2010-11-24T15:01:00.000-08:00

I love traditional Thanksgiving food.

Sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, the turkey, the dressing, the rolls, the cranberry sauce, really, what's not to love.

I am always on the look out for some 'perfect' vegetarian main dish for Thanksgiving.

I know lots of people make the Tofurky. And once in grad school my friend Tracy made one that was so incredible I have considered making one myself. But I just can't get over the name...tofurky...it sounds so silly.

Paging through the latest issue of Organic Gardening Magazine last night I stumbled upon this year's winner of their annual recipe contest Gardener's Seasonal Company Galette. This sounds so good. I love how simple it is and that I will be able to use copious amounts of greens and veggies from our garden.

I think this Galette will be perfect. I'm going to double the recipe and happily use up three whole pounds of chard from the garden!

In addition to this Galette yuminess, I'll also be making a Cranberry Relish With Apples and Pears from the Voluptuous Vegan. This is a really simple relish recipe that uses maple syrup and orange juice to sweeten the cranberries...so good.

I'll also be making an apple pie. Jay loves apple pie and I love making it for him. I use the very wonderful fully illustrated instructions from The Encyclopedia of Cooking Skills and Techniques. I loved this book when I was first learning to cook. It's got such great instructions for very visual learners.

My mom is making the turkey and Grandma Gerth is making the dressing and gravy. My Grandma Bethie and Uncle Chris are coming to visit from Shreveport and Dallas. Bethie is bringing her legendary corn bread stuffing and her stellar Coconut Cake. Chris is bringing a local (to Dallas) organic Turkey. Poor bird is making it across the Mason Dixon line just to get eaten up by some Hoosiers.

Oh, I'm also making salad from our garden...

...because we love us some salad.

I'm so curious to know what other folks have cooking for the holiday. Any favorite recipes? Dani is hosting a cool link-up of thanksgiving recipes.

Wishing you all a very happy Thanksgiving Day.

Welcome GardenMama Readers

2010-11-20T07:19:00.000-08:00

I am honored to have an interview and giveaway featured this weekend at GardenMama.

I've admired Nicole's beautiful photography and creative projects she does with her children since I first stumbled upon her blog a year or so ago. If you aren't already a frequenter of her inspiring space I can't encourage you enough to brew a cup of tea and spend a bit of precious free time looking through her tutorials.

Blogging is something I've been doing for a while now and I love sharing bits of my day, creative work, gardening and cooking. Quite unexpectedly I've stumbled into a community of people who have similar interests to myself; you all totally get it that there is joy to be found in simple things and I never feel silly showing off my latest thrift scores, cooking success, and gardening endeavors.

This was my first time doing an interview and I was taken off guard by how shy I felt about the whole thing. I'm never sure how much to share about me in blog world. So go check it out friends let me know what you think.

Myself, ballet, sometime in the 80's

And for those of you visiting here for the first time, thank you so much for stopping by.

This Moment

2010-11-19T05:27:00.000-08:00

Name and Growl

2010-11-17T06:37:00.000-08:00

In the last few weeks Jay and I have been enjoying watching our boys really start playing together. They've been playing side by side since Beckett started walking but in the past few weeks Bayliss is engaging his little brother in his creative make believe world and Beckett is going right along with him.

Seeing them play together is enough to make a parent's heart burst right open with joy. Bayliss 'reads' Beckett books, Beckett brings Bayliss toys, it's all so very neat to watch their playtime changing. Along with the playing together there has also been alot more play-related squabbling and something I wasn't expecting to happen for a while longer...they've started ganging up on me.

I look a load of wash down stairs yesterday and when I came back up the kids where BOTH naked. "How did this happen?" I asked in frustration. Giggling and running around like crazy cute little animals was their response.

They have named their little baby dolls I made for them for Beckett's first birthday.

The oh so literal Bayliss named his baby "Name". (Much to our amusement his favortie play dogs are named "Dog" and "Dog".)

Beckett likes to grab his baby by the hair and growl, and Bayliss said "his name is Growl".

So, there you go Name and Growl have entered the stage as part of brother play time.

Pretty awesome stuff.

Shop Update: Christmas Goods

2010-11-14T06:10:00.000-08:00

I'm very excited to be adding these new items to my shop this morning:

Tiny Book Ornament

~~~~~Cut from a vintage children's book
assembled and hand bound with care.

A bit of glitter and a bell
make this an heirloom to treasure.~~~~~

I make all of my own sketchbooks but have never made a book to sell. I played around with the size and number of pages in these books trying to get a nice sculptural effect. I love ornaments that are tiny and tactile just begging to be picked up.

Collage Christmas Card

The other new item in my shop this morning is this sweet series of collage cards.

Each Christmas Collage Card has a background of my illustration of falling snow printed onto a 100% post-consumer recycled paper.

Snips of organic cotton fabric and precious images salvaged from a vintage children’s Christmas book are sewn onto each card.

Available both as a single card and as a five card set.

I've also moved my Peace to You Card and Print into the Holiday section of the shop.

I will be donating 30% of all sales from the Peace to You cards and prints to Heifer International through Dec 31st.

This Moment

2010-11-12T04:33:00.000-08:00

10 on 10: November

2010-11-11T11:12:00.000-08:00

Ten photos
One
Every Ten Hours

Morning Work

Little Compost Helper

To The Library

Sleepy Beet Face

Sleeping Babies

Bernina Naptime Bliss

Afternoon Baking Together

Walk at Dusk

Dark Already

Dinner Together

Looking over these photos today I can't believe how beautiful and quiet my day looks. Yesterday, like all days, had many small sweet moments. But it was also brimming over with more than usual amount of frustration; a tired teething baby and a tot who was, how should I say, extraordinarily willful.

Yesterday my eyes saw the beauty and and bountiful blessings in my life, but my ears heard lots of crying and fussing and fits. Many tears got wiped away from their chubby little cheeks, I broke up many fights broken between the boys, there was much carrying of the oldest and extra snuggling and nursing from the littlest. By the end of the day I was bone tired.

The difference between how yesterday felt to me and how it looks in photos is leaving me a bit short for words so I'll borrow a few:

"While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see." ~Dorothea Lange

For all the participants from this month's ten on ten.

What's For Dinner - Weeknight Chard Frittata

2010-11-10T04:47:00.000-08:00

I think this is my favorite time of year for cooking.

The colors of food are my favorite palette.

Soup served, warm and nourishing, in a handmade bowl.

The smell of baking bread dances through the house.

Each meal ends with a salad fresh from the garden.

The warm oven and hot beautiful food bringing soul to the table.

Here is my tentative list of what’s cookin’ this week.

Monday
Carrot Mushroom Loaf, From the Moosewood Cookbook
Salad with creamy dressing
Apples and walnuts

Tuesday
Black Bean Soup, From the Splendid Table
I made this soup on Saturday after hearing the recipe on the radio; I was really intrigued by the list of spices. This is a recipe that I would never have tried if I found it in a book. I would have thought the spices sounded too weird together. The Splendid Table always has superb recipes, so I gave it a go.
This is now my favorite Black Bean Soup. Ever. You’ve gotta try it.
Salad with vinegary dressing
Corn Bread, From Alice Water’s The Art of Simple Food

Wednesday
Shredded beet, carrot, and parsnips on toast (fresh bread!) with wilted chard and blue cheese toasted under the broiler.
Salad with tangy dressing
Bread with Jam

Thursday
Frittata topped with onions, chard, cheddar and feta.
Whole wheat Foccaccia from Apples to Jam
Bread with Yogurt Cheese and Pesto (from the freezer)

Friday
Pizza, my favorite dough is this one from bread and honey. I make it in a triple batch and divvy in up into thirds so I’ve got two in the freezer ready to go. Last week I made a pizza topped with chard, caramelized onions, and feta. It was crazy good. I may repeat that one this week.
Salad

Saturday
Cheese Pie, from Apples to Jam
Salad

Sunday
Whatever’s in the Garden Soup
Salad
Quick Bread

I love Frittata for a quick weeknight meal. This isn’t a traditional Frittata, which takes a tense moment of flipping, that I’m not usually able to get right. I’ve come up with a truly simple way of making it that I don’t think I’ve ever seen in a cookbook. And if my 'simpler' way still seems complicated this is also still quite good if you just scramble the eggs and then top it with greens and finish it under the broiler.

Here is my Recipe for:

A Weeknight Fall Frittata
20 minutes to prepare
feeds 4

1 medium onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, diced
Olive Oil, for cooking
Large bunch of Rainbow Chard, stems diced thoroughly, greens chopped roughly
6-8 eggs
dash salt and pepper
a dash of milk
salt and pepper to taste
large heaping handful of extra sharp shredded cheddar
dainty handful of feta

You are going to cook your greens and eggs in the same skillet to reduce washing pans. The greens will be cooked first, set aside, add a touch more oil, and the same hot pan will cook your eggs.

Wisk eggs in a bowl with a about two tablespoons of milk, add salt and pepper, set aside.

Have all veggies chopped and ready to go (this all cooks up really fast).

Heat a 12 inch cast iron skillet, when hot enough to sizzle a drop of water add a generous layer of olive oil and sauté onion until translucent, reduce heat a bit when translucent (so as not to burn your garlic), add garlic for a minute being very careful not to brown, add chard stems, cook another two to four minutes, add chard and reduce heat a bit more, partially cover (I use a large dinner plate) until chard is wilted, this timing fluctuates greatly depending on the freshness of your chard, garden fresh goes surprisingly quickly, about two minutes, grocery or market chard will take three to five minutes. Scoot chard mixture into a glass bowl.

Using the same still hot skillet add a bit more olive oil, enough to coat the skillet, add your eggs. Allow eggs to cook and set up on bottom of pan without touching or stirring them. pick up large chunks of egg and flip over when cooked on bottom (but before it browns) you want to be touching the egg as little as possible. I usually flip the eggs once in about three pieces. After flipping turn on your broiler, top the egg mixture with your chard mixture, remove from heat and allow the cast iron to cook your eggs for another two minutes while you top this lovely concoction with cheese.

Toast under broiler for about three minutes.

Served on warm plates with warm bread and followed with a salad, it can’t be beat.

First Frost

2010-11-08T05:24:00.000-08:00

A thin blanket
shimmers
over everything in sight

You set out in awe
exploring
an autumn miracle

The moment comes
unexpectedly
seeing it all together

Both for the first time.

A mini shop update (and a giveaway)

2010-11-07T06:49:00.000-08:00

I’ve got two new items up in my shop.

Introducing…

Oh Happy Day Bunting

Twenty Four Inch Garland, handmade with care from all natural repurposed fabric.

To hang in a window…
…on a corkboard
…on a computer screen
…from a dash board

I loved making these tiny buntings. The strings are made from thrifted linen and the triangles are made from cotton scraps. Every time I sew linen I think, my goodness, why don’t I do this everyday. I had fun selecting the colors and designing the backing display for the bunting. I really like the idea of tiny scraps being spun into a wee something someone may cherish.

And there are so many possibilities for making more, very exciting!

Quilt Collage Card

The lovely little card…

Each Quilt Collage Card is made with 100 percent post consumer content paper and embellished with paper from a vintage quilt book. Bright red thread is used to quilt the paper onto the card.

The lovely little envelope…

Each card comes with a handmade envelope made with a charming image from an upcycled quilting book. Easy lift tape is applied on the lip of the envelope for convenient sealing. A small mailing label is sewn onto the envelope for addressing.

Available either as a single card or as a five card set.

And a giveaway…

I made a page for my Etsy Shop on Facebook.

If you have a facebook account and ‘like’ my page before Friday, November 12th I will enter you to win your choice of one of my prints.

Click here to check it out.

It is feeling really good to get some ‘new’ work finished and photographed. I’ve got my line of Christmas goods all finished too (just not all photographed yet). Templates are made and glue stick is being used in abundance.

For me the most challenging (and rewarding) part of designing and making something new is working through prototypes, deciding what works, what doesn’t, and how to refine and simplify to keep prices affordable.
I usually pin things up on a corkboard for a few days and try not to think about them too much so I can come back and look at them with a ‘fresh’ set of eyes. Sometimes it’s really surprising how something that seemed just right a few days ago is clearly not after letting it sit awhile.

Right now I’m working on the part that has become the easiest since having small children. All the work is laid out, templates are made, I’ve got all the components labeled and organized in easy to find baskets in my studio space so that at the end of the day I can come drink a cup of tea and turn piles of paper into piles of finished goods while Jay hangs out in the studio with me.

It feels so good to be making.

I will be putting my 2010 line of Christmas cards and ornaments in my shop next Sunday, November 14th in the late morning.

This Moment

2010-11-05T04:07:00.000-07:00

Really lame halloween photos, the 2010 edition

2010-11-03T04:49:00.000-07:00

An excited kitty cat runs down the street.

He's too young to know his costume is kind of how do we say here, silly. It's made from an old sweater. I'm pretty sure he was the only little boy with arm warmers, wobbly tail, too tight pants, and a silly hat.

He kept pace with his two older cousins for the first block. By the third street this little kitty cat was looking pretty tired.

But the Daper bunny charged on in search for sweets (this is the costume I made for Bayliss's first Halloween.)

And the age old questions remains...

...Why is it so hard to take a photo of two children standing next to each other?

Well, the photos and costumes aren't quite as lame as last year...

We'll try again next year.

Three!

2010-11-02T05:52:00.001-07:00

Can it be that this was only three years ago?

And that you are now old enough to wake up on your birthday morning, holding up three little fingers and stating in the most perfectly cute of morning voices, "today I'm not two, today I am Three!".

Yesterday we decorated the breakfast table with the birthday banner and gifts from Bayliss's Grammy Sue and Grandpa Steve. We also got two Very Special Presents from Jay and I. He specifically requested "Trains in Plastic Packaging". Seriously, this is just too funny. I guess because most of his toys are either home made or from the thrift store he has noticed these alluring toys in their plastic packaging.

Did he like them? He was actually physically shaking when he opened up his two new trains. So funny.

In the morning I told him we could go wherever he wanted and he chose the 'inside park'. (There is a little play place inside of our local mall that we like to go to on a rainy day.)

The kids loved it.

We went for a walk and found a train to ride.

That night we went to Maw Maw Amy's house for a family birthday party.

I repurposed the Halloween candy to turn the cake into a train track (after divvying up the slices my oldest niece and Jay had fun stealing all the candy off the cake).

Presents were opened, cousins played, and we celebrated this beautiful boy.

Welcome to this third year, our dear sweet boy.

(Halloween photos and more on Bayliss's dress up present coming soon!)

blogging break: Back in November

2010-10-22T06:52:00.000-07:00

I am very excited about the amount of things that are making their way off the drawing board and into finished little somethings recently.

I'm getting close to having some things finished.

Last weekend's Yart was totally awesome. I forgot to bring water, a chair, and my camera. People were kind to share the first two with me but sadly I don't have a picture of my festive yellow table to share here.

In order to get things finished for a few (Quickly) approaching Holiday Art Fairs and one (Quickly) approaching third birthday, I'm going to have to sign off from blog land for a week. I'll be back here next Tuesday November 2nd. Wow, in just a week and a half my big little boy will be three And it will be November, both of these things seem impossible.

Until then, Warm Wishes blog friends.

Pots in Action

2010-10-18T10:28:00.000-07:00

There is nothing like opening your cabinet door to a collection of handmade pots.

(Stunning floral plate by Brenda Quinn. Tumbler by Me.)

(Plate by a young woman named Marie, who's last name I don't remember. Tot sized tumbler by Amy Santo.)

I usually indulge in a new handmade mug or plate every year for Christmas. I thought I may share some links to my favorite potters who have work for sale online.

Tracy McEvilly (Tracy and I shared a very down trodden but well decorated home together one summer. Her pots are beautiful. She has some Really Good Deals right now in her Etsy shop. I love these tumblers.)

Kari Radash I love Kari's chunky earthenware pots. These tumblers, with white underglaze, yummy color, and flowers paying homage to appliqué are so right up my ally they may just end up in my cupboard.

Ayumi Horie I had the most lovely mug made by Ayumi. Bayliss accidentally broke it last year. I saved the little pieces to perhaps make them into something someday.

Kristin Pavelka I adore the colors and patterns in Kristin's work. I have a sweet little pink mug and a wee dish similar to this one in her shop. I use the dish as a butter dish on our table. The deep yellow of amish butter next to the beautiful green flowers brings me a bit of joy every day.

I think many people are skeptical of buying handmade pottery because the price tag is so much higher than what you will find in a retail store such as Target or Wal-Mart. I buy most of our dishes at the thrift store or rummage sale where I pick up beautiful quirky little pieces for well under a dollar.

These previously loved little dishes help me pinch my pennies so I can buy a few pots a year. These cherished treasures often chip and break because they aren't hung on the wall or locked behind glass to admire. They are in daily use around here; adding soul to our cupboards and table.

(And I should have mentioned the divine cake pictured in the photos is the Apple Cake from Apples for Jam. I've made it three times (Including once for dinner). It is So Good.)

{Note added 10.22.2010} If you are looking for pottery for the Holiday season try calling local University Art Departments; almost all of them will have a holiday sale that supports the department. University art sales are a good time to support student work (I still remember what an absolute thrill it was to sell my first piece)and grab a good deal on handmade pottery.

This Moment

2010-10-15T05:31:00.000-07:00

"{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words (well, today just a few) - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember." - Words and Inspiration By Amanda.

p.s. wondering if i shouldn't bother with the title 'This Moment'. But I guess a series of 'Pictures of My Kid's Feet' just doesn't have the same ring to it does it?

p.s.s. YART tomorrow!!!!!!

piles, progress, pondering

2010-10-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

In the evenings I've been cutting and folding
gluing and sewing
and with such repetition always comes quite a bit of thinking.

Wondering if I should be carving out more time
for creative pursuits
and in the morning my children call with their frothy hair.

And I am reminded that my studio time
is helping to nourish my creative spirit
and my most important life's work

is right here right now
there are so many ideas percolating
and whatever amount of other work happens or doesn't happen

I am trying to be intentional about making time
for creating
and remembering that these years

When they are so small and need so much
is a time for learning together
and will be my years of most intensive research.

These days full of flour and glue, laughter and dirt
are creating a patina
and planting the richest of seeds deep in my heart.

mandy gerth

Beginning

peace within

Garlic Thoughts

The Tree

The Late Autumn Garden

This Moment

~~~One Week Only Online Sale~~~

~giving~thanks~

This Moment

piles, patchwork, and (thoughts on) new work

Grace and Intent

Hello Four

Flying Time

This Moment

YART!

A bad photo of some butter

Autumn Outside

Random Garden Thoughts

A gift (to myself)

First Day of School

This Moment

Forty One South

Unlisted

A Second Birthday

Not Easy

August Shop Sale

A Walk through My Garden

Just One Week

Oliver Emerson Cummings

One day at a time

Thought Full

Still Here (and some good stuff)

Ready and Waiting

Haircuts all around

Luscious Food

Strawberries, this year

A Great Pea Mystery

doings and happenings ~in bloom~

This Moment

A heart full of gratitude

~pretty wonderful~

This week ~close to heart~

This Moment

Spring Gardening, Part 1; Succession planting and intercropping

When life gives you lemons...

Easter Morning

life

Thrifted Goodness Today YART Tomarrow

Mixed

Back Home

spring in each step

Overwintered

Children’s Handmade Birthday Gifts, A Collage Art Box

This Moment

And the winners are

Rhythm of the Home, Spring 2011

Forty One South

A Giveaway, Until I return next Monday

Mysteries-Frustrations-Seasons

Good Ole Granola

Tiniest Knits

This Moment

Snowsuit Gardening

Really Really Really Big News!

Don't Forget

This Moment

Daily Bread; a Recipe for The Big Batch

Knit Rag Rug

Winter-y Mix, A Shop Sale!

Putting it by

For the Cousins (and second cousins)

Resolute.

For the Grandparents and Great Grandparents

Magic Morning

Christmas Card Photos - the outtakes

Whats crafty and cute and green and red ALL OVER??

let it snow

Merry Making

Simple Goodness

~One Week Only Online Sale~

Welcome GardenMama Readers