Busy Hands Homestead

I have been writing and re-writing an an artist statement to accompany my First Friday show at the Missoula Community Food Co-op. The official event is on April 7th, but my pots will be on display for the remainder of the month. "This will be easy," I thought. After all, the wheat design carved onto the surface of my mugs, bowls and plates is an external expression of a more than a decade long ritual I have created for myself to process the news of violence and conflict present in our world. But still, the words to articulate feelings and motions are hard to construct. I was 18 for 31 days when September 11th became a date marooned in the year 2001 and we entered a pre- and post- world. Slightly tipsy, from my first honey brown beer, at an elevation over 5000 ft, in my best friend's college dorm, I watched bright dots flashing across a night sky and I was struck by the surreal beauty of what could have been mistaken as fireworks on screen but what were in reali...

November and December flew past. There were two craft fairs, an ambitious kindergarten wide art project and a Christmas show that needed a back drop. After these I scrambled to finish a few handmade gifts....  all of which were (or are) admittedly late. There was a lacy pair of knitted socks for my mom, a pair of legwarmers for Ivory I finished last night and sent her to school in this morning and a pair of socks for Adam that are at this moment only a few rows on a set of double pointed needles.  (More on all these projects coming soon.) Through it all I have been on a mission: to bake a  pretzel roll. Why? The Lowell PTA was having a bake sale and I wanted to contribute something savory. Sylvan and I practiced. Sylvan, his little friends, and I practiced. We tried all white flour and partially whole wheat pretzel rolls. (See the difference in the picture above?)  Rolls without butter and milk.  Rolls with butter and milk.  Rolls with p...

Dinner is in the oven.  (By oven I mean the toaster oven I have had set up on the porch all summer to avoid heating up the kitchen when baking smaller items.)   We are having a zucchini dip that tastes similar to spinach artichoke dip and was a raving success with the whole family a few days ago.  So I am making it again.  The kids are at the park with Adam.  I am supposed to be working on this:  I am trying to finish this small quilt for Ivory's first day of school tomorrow. Between our morning WIC appointment and our dentist appointments this afternoon, I have been stitching the details onto the little girl walking a path of hearts to her home. My baby is going to school and I want her to know that my heart will be with her, wherever she may be. The little girl on the quilt is almost done. All she needs are eyes. Then the batting needs to be cut, the layers pinned and quilted and binding stitched all around the edges. Crazy, I ...

The days are sunny and long. There is no time sit down or sleep. There are morels to pick. So many morels to pick that we actually let our kiddos go over to a friends house for an entire day while we scrambled across the steep slope of the burned forest floor.  Our first day together with out children...  in - oh - 5 years or so.   There are summer birthdays to celebrate. There are amazing thrift store scores to discover.   Yes these are my new, super sexy footed pajamas. As I am climbing into bed. Adam: Are you glowing? I look down.  Me:  Yes. I. Am.  All the pterodactyls glow in the dark.   HOT.  right? There are bread baking skills to practice and share. There are more cups to etch.  There are back yard summer nights and bright summer mornings to enjoy with friends.  Somewhere in the doing and going and fun there is time to sleep and maybe the occasional moment to post ...

Half-awake I stumbled down the stairs early this morning with Sylvan on my hip.  He had requested a trip to the bathroom.  As much as I wanted to just roll over and tell him - "You are wearing a diaper.  Just pee in it." - I figured that would counter the daytime potty training efforts.  So I stood up, picked him up and we went to the bathroom.  He went right back to sleep and I stared at the clock: 4:30.  I might as well get up. By the time the Ivory and Sylvan both joined me down stairs I had put the finishing touches on G is for Garlic , and was tediously painting rows of kernels on I is for Indian Corn . By 9:00 we were mixing up our second batch of Whole Wheat Pretzels and were two loads of laundry into the day. By 11:30 I was parking my bike under the tree and Ivory helped me unload the groceries (WIC run!) out of the bike trailer. By 1:00 Sylvan was down for a nap, my list is half checked off (the laundry is hung) and I am trying not to...

Flowers, French Toast Casserole with Blue Berries and Cream Cheese and a Fantastic Straw Hat (not pictured).  What more could a Mama want? A Marlies and Susan Collaboration - my newest flower pot purchased at The Clay Studio's Mother's Day Sale.  A late, late afternoon walk in the bright sun.

I was hoping to post these Sunday night... Whole Wheat Oat Bread and Cherry Poppy Seed Danishes in the making. Christmas Stockings for Adam and I Story Time A few snap shots of our day.

6 Tablespoons melted butter 1 cup sugar 2 eggs 1 1/2 cups pumpkin (cooked and pureed) (I actually used an acorn squash.) 1/4 cup sour cream 1 cup whole wheat flour 1 cup white flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips 1/3 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger 1 teaspoon vanilla 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (optional) 1/4 teaspoon cloves (optional) preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit  combine melted butter, sugar, eggs, pumpkin and sour cream in a bowl and blend well add the whole wheat flour, white flour, baking powder blend well add the semi-sweet chocolate chips, crystallized ginger and vanilla mix in well pour the batter into a greased bread pan (9" x 5") bake 1 hour and 10 minutes up to 1 hour and 20 minutes.  If the top of your bread gets to brown you can set an aluminum foil tent over the bread pan.  cool for 10 minutes, remove from pan and allow to cool completely (about 3 hours).   I added the cinnamon a...

Throughout the holiday season our oven is turned on, the house smells like cinnamon, and cooling racks line the little counter space we have. We baked and iced eight different kinds of cookies and piled up tins filled with dozens of holiday treats. Anyone lucky enough to stop by our house went home with a plate of goodies. We made cardamon braids and delivered them to friends and neighbors. We made a ginger bread house. Last year's gingerbread house was made from a recipe I found on the internet, but the final dough was disappointing at best, and this year I wanted to use the recipe that my mom used when I was a little girl.  I can picture the green clad, almost square cook book of German Christmas baking recipes sitting on her shelf in the living room, but that book is hundreds of miles away. I finally remembered to ask her for the recipe. My mom emailed me the recipe. Adam made the dough. I cut and baked the shapes. While Sylvan napped we glued it ...

I posted images of the soda fire results here: at my new Sticks&Stones Workshop site. In addition to getting ready for the Holiday MADE fair (Dec. 9th from 11am - 6pm), I have been cooking dinner, keeping the house (some what) clean and trying to mark a few of those other nagging projects off of my list. I finally sewed two fabric baskets that I have been intending to sew for eons.  My sewing machine has been stashed away for months now because Sylvan can not resist climbing onto my lab and turning all the dials and pushing the few buttons while it is in use.   That dilapidated little cardboard box held Ivory's shoes and then Sylvan's as well and moved with us not, one, but two times and it is finally being recycled.  In it's place there are now two fabric baskets: one for Ivory's shoes and one for Sylvan's.  They took me only a few hours to make and were absolutely free.  I inherited the fabric when we bought  our house .  Adam has...

Over our Sunday morning cups of coffee Adam and I penciled a list for the day.  Our list had a few chores around the house, but was mostly comprised of delicious food things to make and bake.  The weather is cool and wet and it is planting season again.  This means our Sundays are full of food preparations and our week days are spent apart.   I ran off to the grocery store to pick up a few things while Adam tackled the first food item: Caramel Rolls.  While Adam picked up things around the yard, I rolled up  my sleeves and crumbled together butter and flour to make pie crusts.  I picked the meat off of the bones of last night's roasted chicken , baked butternut squash, boiled sweet potatoes, sauteed mushrooms and broccoli, wilted kale, crumbled up bacon to make my version of the Big Sky Pie that I found in the Missoula Magazine (Page 10) last winter.     Adam started the Braided Swish Cheese Loaves ...

I have been slacking.  There are a few recipes that I have been asked for and I just have not been able to remember to write them down when I am sitting at the computer.  Instead, I have been stricken with extreme guilt at random moments of my day. I am writing them down NOW! for Ellen: GRANOLA!  I have made granola... and I have a super easy and cheap recipe that is my favorite.  It is from the More-with-Less Cookbook compiled by Doris Janzen Longacre Simple Granola preheat your oven to 250* combine in a large mixing bowl: 2 cups whole wheat flour 6 cups rolled oats 1 cup coconut (I use unsweetened, but I'm sure sweetened would work just as well)  1 cup wheat germ in a separate bowl combine 1/2 cup water 1 cup honey 1 cup oil 2 tsp vanilla 1 tbsp salt  combine the wet and dry ingredients and mix thoroughly spread out on two greased cookie sheets and bake about 1 hour or until the crumbles are dried and golden store in an a...

Until I moved to Missoula, Montana a few years ago the only other time I lived more than a few hours away from my mom was during my semester abroad in Newfoundland, Canada.  We were next door neighbors in a few different places, and I could always stop in when ever I wanted, drink cups of coffee, sneak bites of ice cream and spend hours talking, sitting on the kitchen counter while sinking my teeth into slices of bread with Nutella. For months now, I have had a borrowed book laying across my cookbooks in my oh-so-far-away kitchen with the intent of sending the ingredients and instruction of one of the recipes to my mother for Mother's Day.  In spite of all the thinking and planning, the actual doing, of course, is a little on the late side.  The book is Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World . Sylvan gleefully helped me measure out the ingredients, grind them and bag them up. On Mother's day, I still had three little bags with bows and hand stitc...

There is a phone call I have been avoiding.  For weeks now, I should have scheduled a re-enrollment appointment at Ivory's school.  When our family advocate called, I quickly told her I would have to discuss the matter with my husband (not a lie: I really did have to talk to him) and when I run into her I assure her that I will contact her soon.  For the past year Ivory has been attending Head Start four mornings a week, while Sylvan and I are left to our own devices.   A few days ago I received a survey from the program and the last two questions were:  What are three things the program is doing well?  What are three things that need improvement?  Well, the play ground equipment is nice....  as I thought about it, gingerly pecking out my answers on the keyboard, it just became so much more apparent that Head Start is just a bad fit. I have been wrestling with mixed emotions for weeks now. Ivory seems to love the program, but it is a ...