Busy Hands Homestead

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 ...

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...

Do I have a stopping point?  An end goal?  I can't remember any more.  Six quart jars of Amarito Pears line the back of my kitchen counter and six more are ready to go.  I am out of shelf space. The extra shelves Adam hung in our kitchen are filled to capacity.   I am stuck between projects. The things on my list are forever long. I have moments of panic when I remember some thing that I need to do and have not yet done. With only a box and a half of pears sitting in the back room, I feel that I can finally take a moment to sit down - reflect - and recall the sequence of the season that is now filling the kitchen shelves. June  6 - 1/2 pints of Rhubarb Orange Jam             I opened the first jar two days ago - It is fantastic! 3 pints of Pickled Baby Garlic July  5 - 1/2 pints Strawberry Rhubarb Jam 6 - 1/2 pints Cherry Jam with Apple as Pectin 6 - 1/2 pints Cherry Jam (with Palimosa Pectin) ...

"There is a big seed in this one." Sylvan is beaming at me, shoving the fourth plum into his mouth in under five minutes. "Slow down. You are going to get a belly ache." We went on a walk through the neighborhood and passed a tree tucked into an alley that had dropped the most perfectly ripe, pink and purple plums.  We picked them up and brought them home. They are our latest edible find. A few days ago we picked spearmint up the Rattlesnake in the Bugbee Nature Area.    It is dried down and ready to be tea on cold winter nights.    These beautiful and delicious shaggy parasols popped up in our neighbors yard (currently empty and we did ask the landlord's permission) and I used them in our frittata yesterday.  The remainder of the mushrooms are opening up and we will pick and grill them soon. (These mushrooms are what a portabello mushroom you can buy at the grocery store attains to be.  They are meaty and dense and juicy.) Fo...

3 Mamas 6 Kids 3 Dogs We all piled into three cars and drove an hour to pick huckleberries. Small, red and purple berries dot the understory. Each one falling, plunk, into the bottom of my container until finally the bottom is covered. Our fingers red and sticky.  Two mamas, six kids, three dogs, a hour drive there and back:  Totally worth the effort.  Huckles, as Ivory calls them, in the freezer.  Huckles in the scones.  Huckles in this morning's pancakes.   The sweet and tart juicy fruit reminding us that summer is almost over - it is Huckleberry time!

The colors of summer are breathtaking.  The the almost black cherries staining our fingers and faces a bright red. We reach, stretch and pluck hand fulls of cherries and drop them into our baskets.    We eat our fill of cherries in the dappled summer sun. The sun is high overhead. We are hot and hungry and tired. The boxes of cherries are lined up in the shade of the garage. Seventy pounds of summer are coming home with us. We follow the dusty dirt road to the edge of the lake and jump into emerald blue.

Ivory opened the door and beamed at me: "It is a beautiful day!" And it was.  After a wonderful Father's Day breakfast at the Riverside Cafe the remainder of our day was filled with: Random little chores around the yard.  Commencing the construction of a custom coffee table.  A few random chores around the clay studio.   A beautiful day indeed!

The kids and I walked through our garden this morning an snipped flowers for our first summer bouquet:  some roses, a sprig of lemon balm, parsley blossoms, bolting radishes and flowers off of what I am fairly certain are pretty, but invasive, weeds.   It sits in front of me as I trail shapes onto the cups that I threw during yesterday's nap time.  While the children sleep an apple tree moves through the seasons; carrots, beets and cabbages grow  in rows; and hens peck at scratch. Today's nap time creations. 

I bend down, look into the fridge. I close it and step out the back door. I scan the garden beds - back to the fridge. It is June and I am in love with this time of the year. The meal planning gets looser...  instead of having solid shopping lists and a specific plans for each and every item purchased, I step into the garden and ask: "What are we having for dinner?" The truth is, that even though it is June, there are not many things to harvest. There are radishes (and their greens. delicious!), spinach, sprigs of dill, almost ripe strawberries and a mounding rhubarb plant.  All other plants are still tiny - promising more later in the summer. I snip Spinach leaves. They mound up in my basket. I snip a few sprigs of dill. We are having Pacific Rockfish for dinner and these garden additions will be perfect. I look down at my pan and realize that this is the first of  this year's dinners that has a substantial garden contribution.  Sure, I have been usi...

Fairy slipper - This is the first one we say, and then we noticed them everywhere. A two year old chopping down morels with glee!   A quick dip in the hot spring.  We made it home just as it was getting dark.   When we got into the car it was just after 7pm (Montana time). We had been tromping around the woods for 9 hours.  No complaints from the kids...  we stopped at the Lochsa Lodge for dinner... and did not clean our kitchen.  Here is our loot: 8 lbs of morels!

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

This week we have awoken to beautiful skies, a bright sun, and a day full of possibilities. It is Spring Break. We are taking a break too.  We are avoiding our usual routine, and all the places filled with crowds of people - well - on their spring breaks.  We are avoiding the YMCA, the Children's Museum, the library.  We are home.  We are outside. We are in the sunshine.   The garlic I planted last fall is greening the brown surface of the garden bed.   Still invisible rows of radish, spinach, and calendula are nestled in between the green.  Today I dug my hoe across the surface of my giant "raised bed".  It really is a filled in foundation of a shed. ( Visible in the old picture I found of our house .)  I am thinking, planning, dreaming and sketching out the succession of plants I hope to grow this year.  I pounded stakes into the ground and strung yarn from post to post, marking a path.   Last y...

I remember from one of my college classes that the highest biodiversity is found on the edges of bio-systems - tide pools, the soil surface, where the forest meets a meadow.  We are living an edge, the undulating line between winter and spring, warm brilliant sunshine followed by flurries of snow, and it is filled with activity.  When we can, I try not to leave the neighborhood or even our yard and we just stay put.  The car stays in the driveway.  Bikes, helmets, toy trucks and shovels are pulled out and we play and we dig. We move rocks.  We tuck away seeds.   We dream of flowers, and because we are to impatient for our plants to grow, we make our own. We raid the recycling bin. We paint, we cut, we fold, we glue and we sort through the buttons for just the right colors and sizes.  We hang our final project, a colorful paper and cardboard wreath on the front door - to welcome home Adam from his field work, to we...