optimism

Inside again. Trains sprawled, clothes in baskets, books in a pile on our reading chair. It's fine, no surprise, it's January. All of the closets are half-cleaned out, the fridge clean but the fridge door isn't, who cares. What I love about this part of winter is the laziness of it all. Quiet nights of reading, playing music and netflix. Happy not to be running into the studio every time I can make a break for it. The studio is also half organized, but I can find what I need in a pinch ( I think.)













And then there are the plans. For lettuce all year round, they say it's easy. Soup & Salsa ingredients, made from the ground up. I think this is the year, no I'm sure of it. This is the year that I will READ the entire book and not just look at the pictures. This is the year that the soil has been amended enough to produce something, we can take to the table besides garlic.

One great tip I read, see I'm doing it already, is to plant your squash seeds rite into your compost pile! Here are the books I'm looking at... I mean reading rite now:
Organic Kitchen Gardens, 12 Month Gardener, Wisconsin Garden Guide, The Encyclopedia of County Living and Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs and The Farmer's Wife Guide to fabulous fruits & berries. Cross your fingers for me. Have any favorite seed varieties??

a new commitment to home

I have taken a hiatus from the computer not because I had to but because my attention needed to be on my house. I find the best reward of a vacation is to come home feeling refreshed and ready to be home again. Making little changes to make things work better & feel better. The kids love their toys again, mama loves her dirty kitchen again and papa yearns for his shop. Everyone gets what they want. So here are some of my favorite views recently. I illuminated some artwork and hung this old straw hat in our hallway. I really like this simple calm moment before we head downstairs for our day.
Our newly furnished guest room ( no more futons!) Since we have people staying quite often this room needed a good bed. Its a great space to read tin tin before nap time too. I hope to re-upholster that chair this summer too.
Felix's tussled bed. I made this new cork board for the beginning of his school year, in hopes of hanging up his artwork & photo's. We're in heavy "big boy" phase these days.
The start of tomato's tomato's tomato's. Roast, De-seed, cook, puree, can & freeze, repeat.
Here are our new girls, 5 hens giving us 5 egg's /day. I love to just watch them. Oscar & I have a good post nap routine where we feed them the kitchen scraps for the day and wake up slowly.
This is the best part about my house & why I want to commit to being here fully. These gardens are so unbelievable, every hour of the day people are coming & going, growing, harvesting, visiting etc. The energy that is alive across the street is immense, it wafts over into our house all day long. So we get up and do something good, everyday.

mama time

the findings from this morning, the morel gods were shining on T apparently. He giggled.
Working on a chicken coop, I know it's been on my mind but this progress is not due to my nagging.
The dash around the table is his favorite game.

But that was a few days ago and now, it's just me. They're gone, all three of them, as a early mothers day present I suppose, off to oma & opa's house for the night. Big, deep sigh. What to do?? Well plenty of course, I'm able to blog & change things around a bit here and in my real physical house. Here's my list:
house stuff
- weed & mulch front garden
- change sheets
- finishing that huge pile of laundry down there
- figure out where that smell is coming from
- tidy up
me stuff
- have some good friends over for a rowdy " my parents are out of town party"
- sleep it off
- go to the market w/o lugging kids
- paint
- print
- sit
- listen
Indulge me:
It's been on my mind lately the limbo of this little family. Well, not the boys just me. It stems from the big question all families face , is this my whole family? Is there any one out there who's missing? maybe 2 ? Or is this US, our unit? Other families we know who are sure that they're done having kids seem so settled, moving forward. Saving special outfits and handing over the rest, sure that they won't need them anymore. Now I should make it clear, I am not planning on getting pregnant any time soon, but it just popped in my head. Who else is out there for us? I'm not the most patient mother, nor am I the calmest so adding another little one may just tip me over but I can't help but thinking that it's in the cards. And what does that mean? hmmm, I think I need my first cocktail to think it over.
Happy Mothers Day all of you
love, Lily

forcing rhubarb

April 1 : My patch of rhubarb just barely poking out of the ground.
Covered with a broken pot to block out the light and make the shoots reeeeach up.
April 30th : Forced Sweet Rhubarb.
I have always wanted to try this, ever since I saw these beautiful rhubarb forcers in England. Since I can't seem to get enough Rhubarb I started a second patch in our herb garden so that I could experiment with forcing this year ( I never plan ahead!) The theory is that the leaves of the rhubarb don't open up as large leaving the stalks to grow tall & slim but very very sweet, and you can harvest a little earlier in the season. Ohhh what to make what to make, maybe just a little compote on plain yoghart to see how sweet it is!