Busy Hands Homestead

An Empty Gym.  Gallon jugs of tempera paint. Rolls of colored paper.   Scissors. Glue.  A closet of voting booths lined with canvas. Satin Banners.  A few busy kiddo's after school and busy mama's that stayed on for late nights and  Ready. Set. Go.  The backdrop for the Lowell Elementary Christmas show:   All the windows line up for one continuous scene.  Notice the snow flakes?   Snow flake crystals are formed on multiples of three... thee pointed stars, six pointed, nine, twelve etc...  I think it has something to do with the angle of the water molecules.  So,  I folded them on 30 or 60 degree angle resulting in stars that have either 6 or 12 points.  A super late school night for Ivory and Sylvan who patiently looked at Christmas books while Adam picked up our new stacked washer...  My coordinating skills are lacking sometimes - but then I thought that this back drop ...

"Mama! Painted trees!" I glance back at Sylvan in my rear view mirror and then back out of the windshield to try and decipher what he is telling me.  The car smells of apples. "Painted Trees! He repeats his phrase until my eyes rest on a line of small red Norway maples that line the road leading into a yet undeveloped development. Oh.  Painted trees. Yes, they are beautiful. This is the first autumn that Sylvan is really taking in.  He wades through the dunes of yellow maple leaves to pick up they few red ones and hand them to me. "Painted Leaves." Ivory begs daily, reminds me constantly: "Mama you promised that we could make Halloween decorations."   "Today. Yesterday. Tomorrow.  Before dinner. After dinner. After School. Now!!!!!!!!" I know I promised. I sigh. I feel guilty. I say things like: "We have to make food for your dad first." or "It is too late." or "later." or simply "oh, Ivor...

At this moment Adam is driving across town with a door strapped to the top of our tiny car. We bought this door at Home ReSource a while ago, but as my house plan has been developing, it turns out that the door handle is on the wrong side and opens out rather than in...  oh. the details. This is the wrong door..  the new door has identical carving except that the holes for the door handle and lock are on the opposite edge.   This door is intended to be our entry door someday.   But while were were digging through the stacks of doors, I found an identical door.  Well, it is almost identical - except for one important feature: It has an opposite swing and is therefore more ideal in the grand scheme of what our house will become. The new door as a few more dings and scratches so we are exchanging it for the door as well as handles and a dead bolt.  Great trade, right? Our stockpile is up to: 9 windows 4 doors (with some hardware pieced together...

I took Ivory, her friend and Sylvan to the Mini-Naturalist Program at the Montana Natural History Center.  The topic was birds, nests and eggs.  We held nests, matched eggs to their mamas, went outside, collected nesting materials, watched an osprey pair bring branches to their nest, and then built our own nests.  Here are Ivory's nests: They are made of play dough , sticks, leaves, feathers and yarn scraps. When we got home she added birds. Lego Birds.