Busy Hands Homestead

I haven't ventured outside or changed clothes since I got up Saturday morning. Yesterday I went through the annual ritual of cleaning and rearranging the house to accommodate all of the house plants moving back into our living space. By the time I looked at the clock is was 5:30 and I figure I might as well spend the rest of the day in pajamas. The whole point of these posts and participating in the #SNAPchallenge is to raise money for Double SNAP Dollars, which doubles the purchasing power of SNAP benefits spent on fresh fruits and vegetables.  So please, if you have the resources and value expanding access to fresh fruits and vegetables, take a moment to DONATE HERE!   My family has lots of practice cooking on a limited budget, because SNAP used to be our food budget.  These posts might make it seem too easy, but it wasn't.  I am calculating the Double SNAP Program into my daily expenditures, which helps a lot! I also have the benefit of being raised in a fa...

We got up a little earlier than usual. Today was ONE LESS CAR DAY in Missoula and rode my bike down to the end of the street to walk back through the neighborhood and scoop up kids along the way.  I wore cloth shoes and it rained, but the rain has finally cleared the wildfire smoke from the air, and everyone was in good spirits.  Breakfast was quick. 4 tortillas (0.15 x 4 = $0.60) 5 eggs (0.25 x 5 = $1.25) 2 ounces of cheddar cheese (0.16 x 2 = $0.32) Coffee (cost of my coffee share per day $1.52) Cherry Tomatoes (FREE – no really – I have been saving these seeds for 5 years now.  These were tomatoes that volunteered in my yard when we moved to our house and I have replanted them every year since.  I grow them for the cost of water, except I have a flat rate water bill that doesn’t change based on use…  so we will just call them FREE!) Total Breakfast Cost: $3.69 for a family of 4 Wet shoes and all, I walked to the Clay Studio to get a...

The sunshine last until late in the evening and greats us early in the morning.  We have been digging in the garden, running through the sprinkler, chasing our adolescent chickens and before I know it, the kids are up too late again and when I wake them up they are grumpy.  On morning like these I have a favorite breakfast recipe: puff pancakes .  I drag myself down the stairs, preheat the oven, melt the butter, mix the batter, and while the pancakes bake I wrestles kids out of pajamas, into clothes and comb sleep tangles out of hair.  When the timer beeps we have perfectly puffy pancakes.  The more often I have made these the more I have explored possible puff pancake combinations and the options are endless.  Here are my favorites: 1. Thin slices of  Apples and Brie added to the butter while the oven preheats.  The results are less puffy, but delicious with a drizzle of maple syrup.   2. A cu...

I have been wanting to make homemade pop-tarts for what seems like an eternity. There is nothing like being confined by freezing wind and driving snow to bring out the baker in me.  "Lets warm up the kitchen and make pop-tarts." To this Ivory promptly responded: "What are pop-tarts?" To this moment it had never occurred to me that she has not experienced a pop-tart, which means that I have no pressure to meet the expectations set by the pop-tarts sold on grocery store shelves. So we started mixing, rolling and cutting. We spread filling into the center of the hears: strawberry butter I canned last summer, slowly caramelized apples that were a bit mealy for eating out of hand and finally a dark purple plum butter that is a reminder of the last warm sunny days of fall.    While snow piled up outside, we ate warm pop-tarts with a side of scrambled eggs and a good strong cup of coffee for breakfast.  It was delicious. To be honest, I don't ...

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...

Stitch by stitch the blue yarn is becoming a blanket.  It covers my lap, warm and soft. We have had a lazy Saturday and a slow Sunday. The kiddos are on a train ride to California.  Every chair in the house in a straight line.  Lamb and Tiger, doll and bear, Ivory and Sylvan passengers in one giant adventure. Sylvan drives. Ivory serves tea. Ivory drives. Sylvan is the caboose. I knit. I dream. I observe. I think. I remember. I picture myself crouched down, peering into Ivory's face, my arms wrapped around a tiny Sylvan and scolding her: "When someone tells you that your hair is pretty, you say thank you.  When somebody says Hi to you, you say hi back.  You are being rude when you just ignore people." She looks back at me with tears in her eyes: " But Mama, I'm shy." I was exasperated.  I couldn't imagine that my little girl who seems to have no problem approaching strangers, dominating other mother's laps and leading gangs of child...

I passed from one decade of life into the next. Cups clanked, water boiled, voices volleyed and I stared up at the dome of the tent above me. I pulled Sylvan closer. My little snuggle bug. My last baby - who hardly is confined within the parameters of a baby anymore. Ivory slept all night in her own tent. Her zippered flap just a few feet from mine. I smelled coffee - breathed deeply:  Life is good. I shimmied out from under the covers and crawled out of the tent. Loons raced across the lake. We were camping with friends and it just happened to be my birthday. After rounds of breakfast, adult canoe rides, observing never ending dizzying games of tag all the families piled into cars and set out on their respective adventures. We picked up a handful of national forest flyers, a forest service map and we huddled over the lines in the front of our car and picked a spot on the map - Morrell Falls - That is where we will go.  We picked huckleberries on the w...

A small piece of paper torn form a Red Lion Hotels notepad has been floating around my kitchen for the better part of two weeks. It has been clothes pinned to my cooling rack above my kitchen counter.  It has been shuffled under papers on the catch all corner.  It has been used almost daily for the last week and a half. I am afraid I am going to lose it in the shuffle. Scribbled on it is a recipe for Egg-less Apple Cider Pancakes. A recent experiment that turned out to be fantastic.  Ivory, Sylvan, a few more kiddos (10 total), two mamas and I gathered the early fruits of a transparent apple tree, passed them through the hopper and pressed fresh apple cider.  This left me with a giant bowl of sweet, fresh and delicious cider. We sipped cups of the thick juice, but eventually the kids stopped asking for it and I still had a bowl full left.   What to do with all that juice taking up valuable space in my fridge?  The solution: make panc...

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.

March is over.  March is OVER!  The last weekend finally wrapped up a few of the months activities, and of course, it was also Easter.  Three weeks ago I watched the flames fade into the lightening sky.  The wood kiln crackled and popped.  And then we waited.  The door was finally un-bricked and all the ceramic wares were still warm to the touch. We unloaded  scraped and stacked.  I frantically wrapped sculptures, mugs, cups and bowl into pieces of newspaper.  I still had to drive home, pick up the kids, shop for the Easter goodies (last minute - of course) and drive down the Bitterroot valley to our weekend destination.  I checked my email when I got home and found out the results of another of March's projects - the winners of the Second Annual Bathing Beauties Bead Challenge .   Check them out.  The first place winner is AMAZING! I packed the car. Loaded up the kids, the dogs and two sto...

The day has been creeping. The moment I woke up I wanted to pull the covers back over my shoulders. I am on a string of late nights, and Sylvan is a string of sleepless early morning hours, so while my shelf at the clay studio is crowded with an increasing number of mugs and cups, my body is telling me to just stop and go to bed - I didn't listen and now have a cold. Last night I didn't crawl into bed until 1:30, Sylvan woke up before I managed to fall asleep, and I watched every hour pass on the clock across the room.  I nursed, changed his diaper, Adam got water, I took Sylvan to the bathroom, when he started screaming: "Pee, Pee!" at the top of his lungs.  I considered trying to convince him to go in his diaper, and decided that that would be counter productive to the potty training effort. I dragged myself out of bed, got myself and the kids dressed and staggered down the stairs for a quick breakfast before we drove across the Y to Ivory's Rookie S...

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.