Tea and Hospitality

 We really enjoy tea at our house, so our daughter was delighted to find a tea set just her size under the Christmas tree this year. It has been so fun to see her sense of hospitality grow as she pours and serves (imaginary) tea to her little friends (and adult-sized friends as well). I found the (Moroccan?) tea pot at a the little Episcopal thrift store down the street. It has an inscription in what appears to be Arabic on the bottom--makes it feel a bit exotic, like it has exciting stories from far away lands to share with the drinkers of it's tea. And the little white mugs were also a thrift store find--rather breakable, but such a perfect size for an almost two year old and her teddies. The little friends in this photo were all very special Christmas gifts.

"Amish Girl" is a sweet handmade doll from Theo's Character Dolls in Maine, a gift from my husband's Aunt.

The little teddy in the overstuffed chair (a gift from our neighbors) is wearing a sweater knit by a very sweet Aunty, and the teddy on the right is from my grandfather--made in the style of the first teddies. My grandfather tells me he still has one of the originals given to him as a young child--over 80 years old. Very treasured friends indeed!

This morning we visited friends who treated us to a delicious home-cooked lunch, and then this afternoon we brought a batch of enchiladas to a family with a brand new baby. Hospitality is so nourishing for our souls--I'm grateful to have the opportunity to both give and receive this great blessing, and to include my daughter in the process.  To share our lives, our time, our work, food, and compassion with other human beings seems a small and simple thing. But maybe these small acts and attitudes, when added up, have the power to heal our communities on a grand scale.

A wonderful mentor friend of mine has shared a lovely story of hospitality in Kenya on The Africa Fund blog.We can learn so much about taking time to tend to one another from other cultures. May we all remember to slow down and reach out in this coming year.

Our Granola

We eat a lot of granola year round, but these cold winter mornings are a perfect time for hearty breakfasts (and lunches, and snacks). I've seen several blog posts with yummy granola recipes, so I wanted to share ours. It's a modification of a recipe from my mother-in-law. We make it every week or so, and I love it because it's tasty, not the least bit fussy, and adapts well to whatever ingredients we have on hand. It is very simple, but a little spice or special dried fruit will make it fancy enough for a neighborly gift.

Our Granola
(Makes enough to fill a 2 quart mason jar, with a little left over for snacking on)

5 cups rolled oats (or other grain)
1 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Mix above ingredients, then add:
1/2 cup water or apple juice
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup oil

Mix well and spread on two cookie sheets. Bake at 250 degrees for 1 hour, stirring every twenty minutes. Add raisins, cranberries, or other dried fruit after the baked granola has cooled.
You can be creative with the nuts and seeds--adding whatever sounds good. I sometimes sprinkle with cinnamon, too.
You may need to experiment with oven temp and cooking time till you achieve a nice golden brown color.
 

More Hand-Made Gifts

One of my first projects since being bitten by the sewing bug was to make a few potholders from Amanda Blake Soule's book Handmade Home. They are so sweet and pretty, fairly quick and easy (though I still find it challenging to sew a circle!), and small enough to use up little fabric scraps found at garage sales this summer. I liked making them so much that they turned into gifts for several family members this year.

A Letter-Writing Satchel

Now that the new year is here and Christmas surprises no longer need to be kept secret, I have a few hand-made gifts to share. The first is a little letter-writing satchel for my husband made from wool and canvas fabric found at a fabulous place called SCRAP. We've been trying to write more letters lately, and there always seems to be a frustrated search for pen, paper, envelope, and stamp prior to the endeavor. So I sewed up this simple satchel to contain all the necessary supplies and make the whole undertaking a little more peaceful and pleasant. And it worked! We wrote all our thank you's the day after Christmas and found it so satisfying. It helped to have fun and pretty and kooky cards that I also found at Scrap for 5 cents a piece. And Dan really likes it, too.

 

I made a few envelopes from old calendars and magazine pages to include in the satchel: 

Winter Knitting

It has been fun to see my family's little stash of hand-made warm things grow this season.

I already shared this earflap hat, but here's another photo with it in use, along with a little pair of mittens:

The mittens were so quick to make. I used my mom's hand spun yarn from one of her black sheep and the Basic Cuff-Up Mittens pattern. The first time we went out and I saw those little mittens on those little hands, actually functioning to keep out the cold (at least when said mittens STAYED on said hands), my heart felt such gratitude and contentment. Especially with the hand spun yarn and thus the connection to my mother and her sheep. So pure! No packaging to throw away, no processing mills to pollute, no ill-treated laborers to exploit. I think this is the most compelling motivation for me to keep knitting/sewing/making.

This morning was cold and gray and bare, but not raining--perfect conditions for walking to the park. We wore all of our woolens to keep warm.

Under those boots were these socks:

This is her third pair since birth, and the pattern is a favorite of mine for baby gifts. A great way to try out sock knitting without too much commitment. The yarn was a leftover superwash wool and the pattern is "Leftovers" Baby Socks. I've posted more details at my Ravelry page.

My favorite new phrase in my daughter's vocabulary: "Mama made it!"

Solstice reminiscing

On this darkest day, it feels fitting to look back on the months of light and give thanks for all the beauty and bounty the garden has bestowed on us this year.

First spring posy

First April greens

Blue and violet late April garden with chicken coop all ready for growing chicks!

Adolescent hens wandering the garden path in June

Little garden gnome helping with transplants June 1. Such a cold, wet spring this year, we waited till then to put out the tomatoes and peppers. The greens in the background liked the weather, though! And the broccoli and kale in the foreground had been out for a couple of weeks I think.

Mid June garden

June posy

Mid June garden--finally enough sunshine to dry those diapers outside!

First blueberries (renamed "num num" by our daughter) June 17

First egg, July 9

First all-home-grown meal--new purple potatoes with chard onion scramble July 17

Broccoli harvest July 17

Heavenly sweet peas

Proud harvester of September greens

Looking back at the garden photos, I realized my photo shoots dwindled significantly toward the end of the season! I guess we were too busy with gardening to remember to take pictures. A few other little garden notables without good pictures to document were the harvest of beets June 21 (I tried planting a second round, but they were completely destroyed by leaf miners (along with chard and spinach) in spite of our best efforts to protect them); harvest of tomatoes and peppers (late September this year--they really didn't want to ripen with the cool weather!) harvest of carrots (October? I can't remember exactly. I usually like to keep some carrots in the ground to harvest through the winter as we need them, but the tops were infested with aphids this year, so I needed to just get them out of the ground. We do still have some giant parsnips in the ground. They make great additions to winter soups.); and the coming of beautiful goldfinches and various other birds to feast on sunflowers in the fall.

Thank you brother sun for your sustaining light--we look forward to your return in the coming months!

Winter Garden Projects

We recently checked out Joel Salatin's book You Can Farm from the library.  Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms has become a bit of an icon in our house lately. We devoured his book. He gives much needed inspiration and practical advice to people with a dream to make a living from a small sustainable farm. A few basic bits of advice stuck with us. The first being, start now! Wherever you live, whatever level of experience you have, if you don't start with what you have, you'll never get anywhere. The second--good enough is perfect! No need to make everything look pretty as long as it's functional. So with those nuggets as antidotes to our lingering inertia and perfectionism, we (meaning mostly my husband Dan) have done a few projects to improve our little city lot garden in the past month. We've had mild temperatures, so the ground is workable still. The first project was to expand our backyard vegetable growing space into the front yard.

Not gorgeous or perfect, but certainly good enough and functional! (And inexpensive and time-efficient--Dan was able to complete these boxes in a couple of hours with wood he had on hand). In the past we have imported soil from large landscape suppliers because our soil is so poor (nearly solid clay!). But this time we're going to experiment with using what we have and amending with plenty of organic matter (thus the leaf mulch on top) and some nutrients that tend to be lacking in our area. Steve Solomon's book Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades has been our most visited source for learning about soil and growing conditions peculiar to our part of the country. I'll try to update with more details as this project progresses.

 

We also added a gravel path from the front walk to the driveway so we won't have to slog through mud during these long winter months. 

The second project was just completed today. It's an addition to our compost bin so that we have a space for one batch of compost to decompose fully while we add new raw materials to the first space. 

 

Again, maybe not beautiful to the untrained eye (the chickens think it looks DELICIOUS--worms worms worms!), but sturdy enough and functional.  Dan spent a lot of time and a fair amount of money building our first compost bin out of cedar. But we're realizing this really isn't necessary. For the addition, he got pallets for free from a local feed store, and spent about an hour setting it up and moving it into place. This is quite a revelation for us! 

 The bin on the left was the first bin that we've used for about 4 years. We never made enough compost to really use a second bin, but with the chickens we're producing a delightfully large amount!

 Who says rotting plant matter isn't beautiful and appealing?

 Yum!

Bottom's up!