birthday girl

When school got out we headed down to Emerald Isle, North Carolina with two other families for a week on the beach. I'd go back there in a second.

Ruby turned five while we were there, and we spent her birthday at Hammocks Beach State Park. We took a ferry to Bear Island to swim in the beautiful green water. John and John hiked to the point to collect seashells, and Ruby flew a kite by herself for the first time.

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our house for a week

boogie

castles

june

One quarter of the garden is weeded and mulched. Since only tomatoes are planted in here, I let the ladies in in hopes that they might nibble a few of the weeds. They thoroughly enjoyed kicking the hay around.

egg girl

into the woods

We spent Saturday morning in the Mountain Lake Wilderness. My children think they are moutain goats on the rocky overlooks. Ruby made the whole three miles on foot, carrying her panda bear the whole time.  

inspiration

I want to make my own tea towels.

I could make some things out of old books. 

Who doesn't want to go to a Ladies Ladyslipper boozy tea party?

There are so many things I plan on doing once I start sleeping through the night again. Apparently I merely thrash, gnash my teeth, kick, and gasp through the night. Back in 2002 I started telling doctors that I was tired to the bone, and the anwer was always a brush off, "Oh, you have a toddler. All mothers of small children are exhausted." Really? I don't think so.

I have sleep apnea and am getting a CPAP machine in the in the next day or so.  {Monday} While waiting for that I've been using oxygen at night. It is loud and vibrating, but when I wake up I don't feel like my eyeballs are filled with weights. Apparently I'll feel even better with the CPAP.

It is liberating to know that I'm not crazy. And maybe not even lazy. {I think I'm always going to be a fan of sloth.}

happy mother's day

the clara barton crankie

Ella finished her big Civil War paper and project this week. I think this has been going on since Christmas. She also had  a four day math assessment and lots of theater practice and performance, so I'm pretty relieved that the weekend is here. Here is a link to what a crankie is. The paper roll has about twelve scenes, pictures of Clara, quotes, and some pictures that we took at Civil War sites. She puts her Nook behind the rolling page with some Civil War era music. We have been talking about her project for next year already---maybe a crankie show that is sewn.

rabbit, rabbit

Sometimes I can't even believe we live here. This big apple tree didn't bloom last year--it blooms every other year. I wonder what the apples are like?

tomatoes

I've got twelve tomato plants on the front porch from the tomato guru over at Leaping Waters Farm. We have a few Cherokee Purples, Chocolate Cherry, Irene Gallimore, Matina, Green Zebra, Mr. Stripey, Garden Peach, Black Krim, and Big Yellow German. This weekend I'll check out the farmer's market for a few more varieties, and I'll be ready to plant. Looking forward to tomato salads, tomato tarts, and salsa.

blue room author's tea

blossoms

I'm loving the cool late spring. Suddenly everything turned green this week, and my raised beds are full of tiny arugula, spinach, lettuces, mesclun mix, and spring onions. Tiny spears of asparagus are popping up all around the new asparagus bed.

apple blossoms and earth day

author's tea

Yep, John writes books.

spring

We had our first thunderstorms thursday night, and these popped up in the grass in the past few days. I've planted arugula, lettuce, spinach, and cilantro in my raised beds, and  I'm waiting for the asparagus to pop up in their new area. I know we can't eat them this year, but I'm still excited. We have a few old asparagus from the old owners right in the middle of the lawn, and we won't be running over them with the lawnmower. Luckily, the Crow's Nest is five minutes away and sells the most amazing fresh picked stalks, perfect for grilling.

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little girls

These girls are the sweetest twosome in the whole wide world. They live in this amazing intersection of imagination, intuition, and good intentions when they are together. I hope they can stay that way until they are little old ladies. Ruby's friend wants her whole family to move to our house. Hey, they'd save on gas.

It's all ponies, unicorns, rainbow, fairies and saving the world.

civil war family field trips

This is what happens after a short movie about the Civil War battles in and around Fredricksburg, Virginia. The kids went right outside for their own reenactment. If you know me you will laugh because we have never let the kids pretend they are using a gun.

She is writing a paper on Clara Barton and the origins of the Red Cross during the Civil War, and we visited Chatham outside of Fredricksburg. It was used as a field hospital during the war and was visited by Clara Barton, Walt Whitman, and Abraham Lincoln.

Ruby adds some humor to grim historical sights. She would love to wear a hoopskirt and do some smuggling. She wonders why women were not allowed to go to war, but when she watched  a reenactment video even a four year old wondered why lines and lines of men marched up to a row of armed men behind a stone wall only to be shot down. I explained that is was an antique method of warfare and perhaps a matter of principle.

a year ago today

We are having a much cooler spring this year. Bulbs are coming up, but I haven't seen a hint of these yet.

verge {of spring}

hellabores and evening light

Science Fair 2013

I am very proud of both of them for all of their hard work and attention to detail. I was really blown away by the fair as I am every year. Everyone love the kindergarteners and their phonetic spelling and creative experiments. In the older grades they really start delving into things I never even thought about in elementary school. It is always a lot of work and a late night, but it is well worth it.

science fair 2010 and 2011

science fairs

sunset chasing

I saw the sun setting and grabbed my camera and ran down the lane and up a steep hill trying to get away from the crisscrossing power lines. My SD card was still in the computer. This is from the upstairs window when I made it back to the house.

wooly owl

I heard someone say yesterday that February felt like twenty eight Monday mornings in a row, and I think that might be true. It feels rushed and cold and wet, and I haven't had time to enjoy it. I don't know about the groundhog, but it has gone from eight degrees to the wintry mix to simply damp. I need to hibernate a little more.

through the roof

The chimney went through the roof today, and tomorrow we should be on our own with the new woodstove.  It is a little disconcerting to have someone saw a hole through the house. It has been cold and dirty, and the guy finally made the call on the mantel today. It can stay. We hired the oddest cat to do the work, and it has been a strange month communicating with him. I think he is some sort of chimney savant. I think he may be one of the most interesting people I've ever met, and I liked talking to him about woodstoves. He has a Danish one that is chest high with an oven in it. I told him I wanted to wood fired bread oven in the backyard, and he told me about baking cornbread and sweet potatoes in his stove.

We had another snow on friday, two inches of powder, and it seemed warm today when it got up to thirty five degrees.

I can't wait to sit in front of a warm fire.

snow

Waking up to no electricity took a lot of the excitement out of this beautiful snow. We didn't have power for two nights, but I think the kitchen on made it down to 48 degrees. We should be a significantly more prepared by the weekend as the chimney man was here today working on putting in our new chimney and installing the woodstove. He can't work tomorrow as the high is going to be in the teens, but says he'll be here thursday. The chimney is on the north side of the house and doesn't ever get any sun.

Ella fluffed up the chicken's house tonight for some added warmth, and John replaced the avian netting that goes over the top of their run. The wet snow tore that down, and earlier today one of the girls was roosting on one of the corner poles about six feet off the ground.

No one likes the bitter cold, but we need some nights and days like this to kill the ticks that seemed to run rampant last summer.

In  the dancing picture we had gone for a walk on the second snow day because it was feeling warmer outside than inside our house.

slackers

bread

My mother was here for a week and I wanted to take my ability to make bread to the next level. Well, I don't know if I made it there or not, but the results were delicious. I'm going to have to try it again by myself. The levain process is simple but sort of mind boggling in that you throw away most of the flour mixture each day. It takes an extra five pound bag of flour to get the levain started. Honestly, it is well worth the results, and then you have your starter that can be used from then on out. The two darker loaves in the bowl contain a pound of bacon. We won't be doing that ll the time, but it is probably the epitome of rich bread. It will be the perfect bread for a tomato sandwich with homemade mayo, or even a fried green tomato sandwich. It might be the best bread I've ever eaten.

gingerbread houses

at home

and now, a look at the holidays

The children are sad that the Christmas tree is coming down tomorrow. Grandmarie left this morning, and school starts again on Monday. We have loved being at home in this house for the holiday season, but we have had our share of shouting and sibling rivalry around here.  In their own naive way my children are very spoiled. They are also the only grandchildren on both sides of the family, and, heck, I like to spoil them too. Maybe we all need to rethink Christmas in the age of tiny screens. We have had many very good moments though, and I'm already looking forward to next year. As always I need to start earlier with my desire to give handmade gifts. I still have a few things to finish, but hopefully it will be worth the wait for the recipients. The children want more decorations next year, so perhaps we'll have a day for bringing in more greenery, more candles, and if the littles have anything to do with it---more lights. One thing we certainly will have next year is more warmth. The woodstove comes this Wednesday. We had twenty four hours without electricity, and the kitchen went down to 49 degrees. I wouldn't let the kids go out to play in the snow because I no way to really warm them up when they came in. Our twenty five advent candles 'warmed" the house during that dark day.

We had many delicious meals and treats. My mother and I made the Pain Au Bacon from Ken Forkish's new book Flour Water Salt Yeast with perfect results. It takes a week to grow the levain. It was definitely the holiday of bacon, and it came from farms across Virginia. Granny and Grandmarie both brought delicious bacon, and we had our own share from our friends at Leaping Waters Farm. Last night I braved the high winds and fired up the grill to cook some of their Ancient White Park steaks for my mother's birthday. It was  delicious beside Julia Child's braised leeks and the Pain Au Bacon.  On Christmas we had oyster stew and fried oysters from Rappahannock via the Fredricksburg Farmer's Market. I think we need to have iced water and kale salad for the rest of the month.