summer garden

Summer weather is upon us.  I love peeking out the windows as the beautiful sun feeds everything green around us.  I love the smell of the warm air, mingled with fragrances from plants and flowers, as we spend time outside, soaking it all in.  I love to see the kids play in the hose outside, run game after game of tag or basketball, ride bikes all day, and then come in tired and sweaty and ready for a good, cool bath and some reading time indoors.  What a glorious time of year!!

First harvested garden greens, made into a yummy arugula pizza on whole wheat flatbread with melted aged gouda cheese.  Yummmm!!

herbs.

french heirloom radishes.

spinach, swiss chard, kale, cabbage.

lettuce, arugula, mixed greens.

We are enjoying fresh salads every day, and look forward to eating more home-grown foods all summer!  One of my favorite things about the season.  Love!!

make something

When my kids come to me bored and ask,

"What can we do?"

my response is always the same:

"Make something!"

I love to look around the house and see kids creating works of their own.  I see their wheels spinning, as they gather up materials and look for a quiet spot to "work."  I watch as they try to put something together, and sometimes fail a few times before getting the materials and structure just right.  It's an interesting process to observe, especially when kids are left alone to hammer out details and make things work.  I like to be present and available while they work on projects or inventions, but I really believe in letting them go at it alone, with as little intervention as possible.  It's amazing what they can do on their own.  And they need to find this out for themselves.  

As parents, we all tell our children that they can do or be anthing they want...if they set their mind and heart to it.  But when they begin to create works of their own, they really begin to believe in themselves.  The seeds of real self-worth are planted, and begin to grow as children work to accomplish more and more, in order to get another taste of that sweet feeling of satisfaction they have experienced in creating something of their own.

Hannah has been making friendship bracelets and doing lots of art work.  She is teaching her sisters to do all of the amazing things she likes to do.  She always has a knitting project going, and really turns out more finished projects than anyone else in the house!

This cute 4-year-old sat and embroidered this entire little sketch of a bunny all by herself.  I untied a few knots in the floss, and threaded and re-threaded her needle when necessary.  But she worked so hard on her own!  The entire project was her own idea.  Now she wants to turn it into a bunny apron for spring cooking.  Cutie!

She also raids my fabric stash regularly, along with her sisters, and makes all sorts of cool creations from colorful scraps.  While her big sister sews up some pretty things, she uses scotch tape and bobby pins to make her dolly clothes and blankets stay together.  Clever :).

I found Eliza in my studio last week, working at some fashion designs on the dress form.  Dolled up in all varieties of trim, including fur, bias tape, lace, ric-rac, and her own embroidered creation for an apron, I think this dressed-up lady has substantial style...especially for having a 6-year-old stylist!

And she's finally caught the knitting bug!  I can hardly get her to turn out her light at night...she's up in her bed knitting away.  Just like her mama!

Taylor made these delicious homemade flour tortillas for dinner yesterday.  I wasn't even around to offer a hand.  All he needed was some inspiration from a friend who just did some traveling in Central America, and a little help from good ol' youtube.  He even cleaned up his own mess...what a stud!

 Everyone loved the tortillas! 

(especially our now toothless Eliza!)

mmmmmm!

The boys have also been working at perfecting their bow and arrow design,

and making plans to fix up an old treehouse in one of the big elm trees out back.

Honestly, it amazes me what these kids can do.  All they need is some basic skills, and a little free time.  

Sometimes I worry about them.  Are they learning enough?  Are they responsible?  Are they caught up in math?  Are they going to make it in the "real world" someday?  Do they have clean socks on?  

Etc., etc...

And then I look around and see what they have created.  I see them invent and play and work and make.  I see them gather and function in teams in order to conquer a task or game.  I see them settle differences and come to agreements.  I see them do hard things.  

And then I get the feeling that they'll be just fine.

hens a-layin'

Happy, happy April everyone!!

Hope you had a beautiful weekend.

We spent ours gathered around the television, watching General Conference...something we look forward to every six months.

It was wonderful and I feel inspired to be a better person.

I can't believe spring is here!

After a long winter hiatus, our hens have decided to start laying eggs again.  Hooray!!

We love fresh eggs!  In fact, we just don't eat a lot of eggs when we can't get the fresh kind...the storebought variety pales in comparison to the fresh, bright-yellow-yoked, fetched-from-the-coop kind.  We're so thankful for our little feathered friends in the springtime, and for the excellent source of nutrition they give us.  And we're thankful that beautiful spring has arrived...like all of nature at this time of year, it is such a productive time for these backyard mama hens of ours! 

The girls are the self-designated egg collectors.

They love going out to the coop and hunting around for the colored eggs...

...kinda' like Easter every day!

(They also like showing off...notice Eliza's boot flying across the yard when she saw me pull out the camera...?!)

Then, the washing and sorting.

And counting, of course.

The boys want to know when we'll have enough eggs to start selling them for money.

I tell them: when we have more than we can eat.

So far, no surplus...

...just lots of omelets, poached eggs with toast, crepes, puffed dutch pancakes, muffins, and good 'ol scrambled eggs for any meal of the day.

And just in time...I'm finally getting over the long bout of morning sickness I've had all winter. Spring is looking more productive for this mama hen too!!  :)

on homemade bread and soaked grains

When the chilly weather comes, our lighter summer fare is replaced by warm, nourishing comfort foods.  Soups, breads, and baked goods are staples at our house.

Did you know that traditionally, grains, nuts, seeds, and beans were prepared by soaking, sprouting, or souring them before consumption?  This makes them easier to digest and more nutritious.  These foods are full of phytic acids which grab onto imprtant minerals in our bodies, depleting us of those minerals as we digest them.  They also inhibit enzymes in our bodies, such as pepsin and amylase, which we need to digest our food.  Soaking, sprouting, and souring helps neutralize the phytic acids in grains, nuts, seeds, and beans. Most (if not all) of the processed foods we eat are full of phytates, which contribute to rampant nutrient deficiencies, digestive disorders, tooth decay, and so many other health problems in today's society.  Here's a great (very scientific) article describing this in depth, with great research and references.  And I think the best book about real, traditional foods on the market is Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon.  My second favorite is Real Food: What to Eat and Why by Nina Planck.  Both discuss traditional methods of soaking grains and other foods.  And so much more!!   

About a year ago, a good friend taught me how to make soaked whole wheat bread.  Her recipe is here.  To neutralize the phytic acid in freshly ground whole wheat flour, you can soak it overnight in buttermilk, yogurt, or kefir.  I do this in my Bosch mixer at night.  And then in the morning, I add a couple of other ingredients to the mixer bowl, mix for a few minutes, and then roll it into bagels, donuts, buscuits, cinnamon rolls, or tortillas.  This dough is rather heavy, and we prefer to use it for pastries rather than sandwich bread.  We use the sourdough recipe for baking loaves, or sometimes purchase Ezequiel sprouted grain bread at the grocery store to keep in the freezer for toast and sandwiches.  Our favorite way to use the soaked dough is to fry it in coconut oil for homemade donuts.  While they are hot, we dip them in organic powdered sugar or sucanat and cinnamon.  With raw milk, they make the best breakfast, snack, or dessert!

Another friend recently taught me how to make authentic sourdough bread.  It's absolutely delicious!!  I've only tried it with unbleached flour, but I plan on adding whole grains and doing some experimenting to make it more nourishing.  It's such a simple method for no-knead breadmaking...I'm smitten!!  And the starter cultures the flour, which neutralizes the phytates in the bread.

I have never made sourdough starter from scratch, because my friend generously shared some of hers.  In the Nourishing Traditions book, there is a detailed recipe for sourdough starter, which calls for whole rye flour.  But my friend made hers with unbleached flour with excellent results as well.  

Below is a great video tutorial from the New York Times.  I have been using this exact recipe for my sourdough bread, but substituting 1/4 cup sourdough starter for the yeast.  This guy makes it look so easy.  And it really is!! 

We are loving our bread and pastries this winter.  And knowing that they are nourishing and easy to digest is an added bonus to the yummy taste and smell of freshly baked homemade bread!

apple season

We are loving apple season this year!  We try to purchase apples once in a while throughout the summer, when we're really missing them, but they just never taste good to us.  So, we highly anticipate the harvest of juicy, fresh fall apples from our local trees.

Unfortunately, our sad, old apple tree has only produced a total of three apples since we moved in.  So we rely on apples from neighbors' trees, and from our local apple orchard.  A generous neighbor had a surplus of apples this year, so we went and picked several buckets of them.

With this year's apples, we have:

• bottled yummy applesauce with some of our best friends.  The boys and little girls waited in line most of the day for their turn to crank the strainer, and Hannah and her friend Claire chopped almost all of the apples for steaming.  They were great helpers and we had such a fun canning day!

• made caramel apples.  Well, we haven't dipped apples as a family yet...it's on the November agenda.  But I went to a friend's kitchen to learn how to make the fancy, chocolate covered variety with some ladies in the neighborhood.  mmmmmm.  So, so yummy and pretty.

• sliced and baked them into yummy apple pies.  Best pies ever.  Fresh apples make all the difference.  (sorry...no photo of the finished pies...they were gone before they had even cooled!

• and of course, eaten lots of them raw, alongside our favorite Irish cheese.  The perfect fall snack.

Today we're going to roast some apples.  And perhaps make a few more pies.  I love the spicy, sweet fragrance that fills my home on apple-baking days.  

And this weekend, our local apple orchard is pressing again...can't wait to stock my fridge and freezer with their fresh raw cider.  We drink it hot and cold all season long.

Now it's time for a snack.  Apples and cheese on a pretty plate at the coffee table.  While the kids kneel around the table in front of the fire and eat, I'll read aloud to them, and then we'll get going on our math, science, and grammar lessons.

Have a fine fall day!  And go eat an apple!

in the garden

I'm no expert gardner.  In fact, I've had several failed gardens, and some partially successful attempts, but never a full working garden.  After the first summer here in Utah, we realized that this existing garden plot was infested with viney, invasive morning glory weeds.  The kind that spring up every inch of the soil, and wrap themselves around plants.  The roots go super deep into the ground, and from what I've read, it's practically impossible to get rid of!  

So this year, I had Taylor and a neighbor boy build some garden boxes, and we laid layers of commercial-grade weed cloth underneath them.  We're hoping this helps keep the weeds from taking over!  By the time we finished fixing up the plot, we planted really late.  But we had a cold, rainy spring here, so our plants are coming up nicely.  And I'm so excited!!  I used mostly seeds this year, because I wanted to try some heirloom varieties...and it's such an amazing process to watch everything spring up out of the ground!

I have lots of helpers to keep tabs on things out there...

We still have work to do...I need to put up some trellises for vine plants.  And maybe some fencing, in case the goats escape their pasture for a snack.  Which did happen a few days ago.  Fortunately, they headed right for the apricot tree instead of the garden.  Unfortunately, they pulled down an entire branch, broke it off, and ate the leaves and apricots clean off it.  Bummer.

 Cool, spicy heirloom radishes...

 Peppers...

 Yummy lettuce in different varieties...

We've been eating delicious, fresh salads full of home-grown goodness and loving it!!

How is your garden growing?

stocking up

Expecting lots of snow this week, we spent part of our weekend hauling fallen-tree wood from the back of our property, bringing it closer to the house.  (Thanks to the previous owners of our home, there's a nice stash of chopped logs back there!)

And snow it did...

before we finished the job.

And this morning...

worth it:

(our basement wood stove, lit and warming the room...

I love how it draws everyone around for a cozy morning devotional and family study time...

well...that is, after I finally get them back inside the house.  They went out early to do their animal chores, fully outfitted in snowsuits and gloves, and never returned.  I see lots of busy, snowball-throwing, snowman-making bodies outside...hmmm, I think I'll wait by that quiet, warm, crackling fire with a book, and delay school for a couple of hours.  Ahhhh, sounds good to me!)