Busy Hands Homestead

A gift arrived in this giant box....  and the box is just as awesome as the new sleds.  While Adam took the kids on a cold and windy sled ride. I finally finished our present for Sylvan...  and yes, it is late, very late!   Here is his very own fort kit.  At dinner every night Sylvan takes one look at his food and screams: "I don't like that!  I don't like that food!  I don't like that!"  The rest of the family is almost done before he takes his first bite of his pinto bean, onion, spaghetti squash and cheese quesadilla...  and....  a big grin spreads across his face.  He does like the food.  As a reward for trying his first bite Sylvan snapped this picture of his sister.  (She ate all her food, and half of his.)

I actually managed to mail out Valentines on time - last year .    I think it might have been a fluke...   This year, like most years, I am behind.  There are neat rows of heart shaped bird seed cakes sitting in my dehydrator - waiting to be shipped to loved ones across the country.  We will get them mailed eventually.  Just making the cards and bird seed cakes for Ivory's kindergarten class took a dedicated session of card writing after school each day - and she cut and wrote and decorated each card on her own, diligently crossing off each of the twenty names on the list.  The night before we stuffed them into Ziploc bags and I added a cautionary DO NOT EAT tag.  This treat is for the birds.   The morning of, Ivory asked to be woken up early, so that I could French braid her hair into... .... the shape of a heart. Ivory: "oh. Mama.  You are bringing Vegetables to my Valentine's Day Party?" Ad...

Our snowman is buried in a fresh layer of snow.  The view from our neighborhood sledding hill.  Adam and Sylvan heading down the hill.  Going, going... ... gone.  Snow ice cream in front of the furnace.  After our fingers and toes warmed up, we got an early start on valentines for Ivory's class mates.  Heart shaped bird seed cakes, ready to be hung in branches, on porches or in front of windows. Our Sunday in Snapshots. 

"I am sorry, I can't help", she says sliding my tax forms across the table. I don't remember if she wore glasses, but if she, did she would have been looking at me above the rims. "What is it that you do again?" I wince and opt to believe that the condescending tone was only in my imagination. Sylvan is sitting on my lap. "I am a mom", I say embarrassed.  Was I blushing?  I scrape a bit of dried clay off of my fleece, " I do lots of things." I am between day one and two of three days in the kindergarten classrooms at my daughter's elementary school.  I had spent the last two nights in the studio rolling out clay slabs until the wee hours of the morning. What do I do? I am a non-entity on a tax return.  I don't exist.  I am invisible. I do things. The thoughts run through my head. I am productive. I consider myself a valued member of my community.  Really. I smile. "Well.  Thanks for taking time out of your day t...

I turned the pages of every knitting book I own. I looked through half a dozen knitting books from the library. I scrolled through pages of free patterns on the internet. I wasted time. Ivory had picked out purple grey yarn weeks before at the store.  I was planning to knit her socks. "Mama can you knit me legwarmers?"  She asked one evening. Of course.  Legwarmers made perfect sense. They would span the distance between the ends of all those size four leggings that fit her waist but come nowhere close to her ankles. No pattern for legwarmers. No more wasting time. I just started knitting: guessing here and there and finally coming up with a pattern that features a scallop on the top edge, super stretchy ribbing on the leg and a super stretch (new to me) bind off. I didn't get them done for Christmas, but I did get them done for the first day back to school. Materials: 1 Skein Premier Yarns, Serenity Sock Weight, 50% Superwash Merino  wool, 25...

As I wrap blue yarn with hints of pink and green and purple around my knitting needle and pull one stitch through the other an ocean grows. The sky is dark and the water is reflecting the stars, the moon, the whole universe. There are shimmers of light on gentle ocean swells. The swells rising and falling and swirling. Cradled in the middle of it all is a baby. A tiny speck in the vastness of everything - gently rocked, safe and snug and warm. Materials: 3 Skeins Lion Brand Yarns Wool-Ease, Blue Mist    (the gauge listed on label is 18 stitches by 24 rows to make a 4" square on size 8 needles) size 10 needles short note on yarn choice: I chose this yarn because it is machine washable and dryable and contains 20% wool.  I prefer to work with yarns that are composed of natural fibers, but since this is a gift for a young mom and her first child I figured that utility, affordability and appearance was allowed to over ride my yarn snobbery. (And my favori...

Ivory threaded the needle up and down through the button holes.  Tacking down the tulle, sandwiched between the button and a layer of sparkling felt.   I stitched the whole thing to hair clips.  There they are:  We are ready to go to celebrate a birthday!

This took me 10 months to finish... and it is all wrong - wrong yarn, wrong gauge, wrong size. I knew it was all wrong just a few rows into the project. I finished it anyway. I learned new skills. Next time I attempt this, I will splurge for nice yarn, the correct gauge and make two that are a reasonable size. Now that I know what I am doing. This one I am giving to a friend to use as a display for toys in a shop window.

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 ...

I etched my last tumbler.   This one has bunches of beets on a plaid table cloth. Tomorrow morning it is off to the clay studio to throw a few more cups.

My kitchen is turning into a studio...  again.  Twelve tumblers in progress. 

Previous birthdays we invited all our our friends.  We had potlucks. We sipped beers and chatted while the hoard of children played in the background.  I anxiously eyed the weather forecast.  Her birthday day yo-yo-ing between sunshine and rain.  Our home is not suited to squeezing large groups of folks into, and this year it seemed the focus should be on the birthday girl. So I narrowed the list down based on her friends rather than mine..  hoped we would have sunshine and that everyone would understand...  and made invitations. Ivory is five. This birthday, more than previous birthdays, feels like a rite of passage. Suddenly she is school aged. She is enrolled in kindergarden and after this summer I will be dropping her off into the care of another for hours each weekday.  This is a change I can hardly fathom.  While I stitch the seams of her new touch-the floor-princess dress I worry about back packs, school lunches and if she will fe...

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.

F is for Fennel D is for Dill  E is for Endive (unfinished) N is for Nectarine W is for Watermelon (Oklahoma's state Vegetable - no joke) S is for Strawberries

L is for Leek S is for Strawberries  I spent the early morning hours painting.  I started the project when Ivory was about 6 months old. By started I mean that I purchased a set of wooden letters and a box to store them in.  I had enough foresight to include enough letters to spell Mama, Papa and Sylvan.  I knew then that if our future included a little boy, he would be named Sylvan.  Since then I have managed to sand all the letters and paint a few. Each letter features a fruit, vegetable or herb that starts with that sound.   I hope to finish painting all the letters before Ivory learns to read... and that is a skill she could master at any moment. C is for Carrot E is for Eggplant D is for Dandelion

"Hugh.  That Heavy!" Sylvan sighs and steps out of my path. He follows me, barely a step behind, from the stack of cinder blocks to the freshly leveled earth underneath the maple tree. "Hugh.  That Heavy!" I grab a second block. "Hugh.  That Heavy!" With each block I lift, he sighs, and walks directly behind me, following my steps. "One More?" "Hugh.  That Heavy." Our house came with piles of stuff - not junk exactly - just stuff: bricks, cinder blocks, landscaping rock, pine boards, steel rods, 5 gallon buckets..... "Hugh.  That Heavy." Adam's birthday is on Friday. I finally thought of a birthday present. Sure, he has a long list of tools he wants/needs, but I don't dare pick those out for him...  not to mention that the tools remaining on his wish list are pricey.  Those purchases can not be clandestine operations. But, he also keeps mentioning that he wishes he had a place to burn his piec...