Busy Hands Homestead

     I pulled my nice set of prismacolor pencils out of their hiding place, stuck a few pieces of paper in a book and put it all into my purse waiting for an opportunity to sit alone and finish Adam's batch of home brew.      Every beer needs a label.      I was hoping for the magical double nap that would allow me to finish the sketch I had started a few days ago.  I loaded the kids into the stroller and set off.  The double nap remained illusive.  After walking for a hour and detouring to the Children's Museum for a few more hours, I finally called Adam to come get the two of them and give me the chance to, well, do what I needed to do.      I almost forgot that I like to draw.        After much deliberation and a few starts I decided to call the beer Break of Day IPA.  The morning star is still bright in the sky, but the dark of night is fading away and a track of hoof prints ...

Yesterday afternoon Ivory and I rolled up our sleeves to scoop whole wheat flour and yeast. It seems like forever since the two of us have tackled a project together. She is now going to school in the mornings and on her days off, I have been sending her and Adam out to play together so that I can spend a few hours behind the sewing machine without distraction. The ground is covered with snow, Adam has taken the car to go hunting for the weekend and Sylvan was asleep, so rather than Ivory's usual lunch and nap routine, I decided that she and I needed to bake ourselves a treat: Pretzels. She has been begging for pretzels, and while I know she means the small crunchy kind that comes out of a puffed up bag, I thought that this might just do the trick. I dug through my cook books, surprised that my giant bread book lacked the word pretzel in the index and finally stumbled on a super simple recipe tucked in the pages of the information packed book Super Baby Food by Ruth Y...