Lessons from a Mountain Lion (Dominion Redux)

I'm a stone mason.  I've the blessing of being allowed time in my mind while creating works of art, almost exclusively outside.  So I ruminate.  In nature.  A lot.
I'm a seeker.  I've the blessing of receiving a Godshot many years ago that pulled back a veil between waking reality and wakeful reality: I believe that we're here to learn and to experience.  To what end I don't know, and maybe part of it is being comfortable with the not-knowing.  But I digress.

I last shared my myriad emotions and thought trails around the notion of dominion, co-existence and consumption of sentient beings, and wondered how I had stumbled and lost my place in The Circle.  One of the people I'm closest to reminded me earnestly, "If those chickens were ten feet tall, do you think they would hesitate to eat you?"  And that touched on something.  And so I thought on that as I began this most recent job.
I thought, too, about the proximity of a mountain lion sighting just a mile and a bit from where we were to begin this job, about how I'd heard of but not seen the elusive creatures here.  I thought that, actually, I'm fairly grateful for the fact.

I was contracted to build a small feature wall, some forty feet long, just a couple feet tall.  The client asked that we harvest stone from the woods at the far north end of the property; the land is replete with old stone-stack walls and gullies and creeks filled with tumbled moraine.  What a gift, to spend time in a distant patch of unfamiliar forest, gathering these ancient stones.  Before we headed back through the fields, the client flippantly recalled that recently they were awakened by the horses at some pre-dawn hour, only to come out to see a mountain lion snooping around one of the sheds just before it ran for the darkness of the north forest.  In the morning they had made plaster casts of the impressive paw prints left in the soft soil near the shed.  I didn't feel the impulse to ask to see them, but loaded my truck with my partner and we headed out.
........
There's something to be said for the forest, perhaps more to be said for some that feel more remote.  There's the almost silence (there's almost always something somewhere scurrying or dropping from trees), and there's the stoicism of the flora, grandeur of the trees and stones.  But the space is different.  The forest is not uninviting, but it's no condo either.  It opens, it undulates, it turns.  As we spoke to each other as we started gleaning and drifted apart, it became apparent that beyond some hundred yards it becomes shouting, nothing to contain, retain, or reverberate our words.
And just like that I was alone.  Victor had headed east, I had moved down a hill to the northwest.  I enjoy those moments.  It's always humbling, and the return is to have returned victorious, in some small way, in some primal sense.  And so I turned over stones, looking for interesting characteristics, smooth faces, flat backs, strands of quartz blazing through granite.  But I kept thinking about that cat.
Moving the sheep on the ridge I have steeled myself for a bear encounter.  How they behave, how to respond, hoping for the best.  But a mountain lion?  The thought had me a bit off balance.  I understand they're not just enormous (certainly relative to a bobcat or lynx, which I have seen) but silent, something of a terrestrial shark.  There is nothing I can do in this moment, I thought, that would serve me in an encounter.  Just like that, I thought, it could happen.  Just like that.  Sparing the more grisly details of the "it", I pondered the significance of the "it".  "Just like that," again...."it could happen."

The "it", I realized, is that I would be serving an unforeseen part of The Circle that I had been sleeping through.  And unlike the compassionate husbandry aspects, it would likely not be fast nor without pain.  I am, and we are, a part of The Circle whether we are aware of it or not, whether we choose to be or not, whether we like it or not.  We can build our structures, literal or figurative, to any dimension we choose in order to keep the wolves out (or, in this case, the mountain lion), but there's no true escape from what is simply, in the end, what is.  To that end, we become the soil that feeds the worm.  The worm that feeds the chicken.  The chicken that perhaps is incubated in a home and raised with loving hands, fed well and cared for, and eventually is killed and processed and consumed. I described the rooster fighting that has begun in the chicken yard and it's affect on the flock, and a friend said shortly and assuredly, "Ah.  It's time for them to serve their purpose then."
I love my chickens, and take measures to assure that they're cared for as well as I can provide every day.  We have eight warring roos currently.  Three will be processed on Monday.  I'm simply not looking forward to it, and I think more and more that it's okay that I never will.  We are a family of eight, few of whom have any desire to omit animal from the diet.  I lift stones all day: my forays into vegetarianism and veganism were short-lived and revealing.  We will eat animals, and to defer the process elsewhere, for me, is farther from my God than I want to be.

I don't have to like it.

But I guarantee I'll be profoundly grateful.

Big bumps in a small world

I thought recently, as I split and stacked firewood that I had bucked up for two days prior, that the homesteading idea is actually rarely anything like glamorous, or maybe more on point, less glamorous than I've seen it depicted now and again.  Dealing with the coming season's firewood can be tedious, monotonous, especially going it alone.  Drive and motivation are provided by precognizing the warmth and security of a hearty fire in the wood stove, our sole source of heat.  The gleaning and processing of food is not too far off the same calculus, acutely when considering the long arc involving the preparation and maintenance of fruit and vegetable acreage: it's a seasons-long process, and it takes an approach that requires labor along the lines of months, not hours.  There's so much uncertainty, so much Grace, so much understanding.  And no small factor of humility: if you think you know some absolutes, you don't.

I like tomatoes, and I pick 'em and eat 'em.  I really do like kale generally, too.  Our ladies in the chicken yard are laying so steadily and in such profusion that they almost make me feel something akin to proud, and I thoroughly enjoy eating the eggs. I thank them every day and try to give them the best that I can.  I also gently handle and spend time with the roosters that are next in line to be processed.  ('Process' being that agrarian euphemism that so gently and subtly covers so much ground.)  I tell them that they're doing great, eating well and growing into beautiful birds. I also tell them that we are soon going to kill them and eat them.  Sometimes this makes me feel like I'm mildly psychotic, but it's the only way I know right now to have an authentic relationship with them.  I don't want it to be a secret; it's important that we are very clear in the presence of whatever God we claim to know.  (Still...it may be a bit weird.)  It's more fair warning than I've ever given any tomato, at any rate.
We have these sheep, too.  I can hardly express the joy I get from spending time with them, and I thrive on being in rhythm with them throughout the seasons.  They help ground me, they share so readily their open hearts, and can even bolster my esteem (typically when my grain bag is full), to say nothing of all they do to nourish and tend the land here.  They're remarkable creatures in my eyes.  Some I have come to know over four years now, which is to say some of the sheep and I have really gotten to know each other.  And so it doesn't necessarily shock me so much as it sends odd tectonic tremors through me when we lose one. Jens (the shepherd) and I spent a couple hours with the flock today, and I surprised myself at being somewhat taken aback when he asked if I felt like one of the elders' time was coming before the next breeding season.  I'd noticed her bag has remained distended beyond the weaning, and that she'd slowed appreciably, she'd suffered mastitis at last lambing; I'd also been enjoying how she's become so much more 'friendly', slower to leave our impromptu morning meetings.  I cognitively know what all these things point to, for the health of the flock, her lambs, her self.  I also affix emotional value to her as well.  As an individual involved in animal husbandry (again), this is to my detriment.
We have a pig that will be ready to harvest in a month or so.  The last harvest experience I had was with our dearest friends, folks whom I love and trust and admire very much, and to my chagrin (literally, I'm sorry to say), the act raised so many questions for me.  Questions that I'd not asked myself in decades.  Questions of dominion, of place in the world.  I ate pork as I ate tomatoes or eggs...chicken, too.  How had I allowed my spirit to slumber, sleeping unfeeling, unfazed, through the high holy act of consumption?  How had I forgotten that for that being, I was witness and complicit in the earthly ultimate sacrifice?  I can blame media or marketing or just about any anesthetic I can conjure, but none of it is the Truth, and the Truth has little to do with 'how' or 'why': Truth, in my opinion, is about the present and exists without questions.  Contemporary truth is that I've held in solemn regard the sheep that I've consumed in the past years, and it's because they have had names to me.  But so did that pig.  So do those roosters.

I expressed to Marcy, coming out of that post-harvest funk, that I needed to speak with some holy people, to contact some shamans, to ask worldly natives about what their relationship is with husbandry, with dominion, with consumption.  I needed some answers.  And Marcy, as only she can, called me out...lovingly.  No one on this planet was going to 'give me answers', and I knew it.  She's right, of course.

In the time since, I've noticed the wisest people don't offer any words.  They listen, authentically, kindly, with real empathy.  Some offer how they feel, asking if I think it'll help.  And without fail, they ask what I'm feeling.

I say I need more time walking the land, in prayer.  In reverie.  In gratitude.  I'll leave glamour to the media.

Autumn Fairy Crown

We have had some really beautiful weather here these past few weeks. Warm days and cool nights. Leaves so colorful and skies so blue. Lee has still been home as he's waiting for some jobs to line up so in the meantime, life goes on as it has for the past month or so. Schooling has been spent outside much of the time, little book work has been accomplished, the sheep have been visited and many walks have been had. I've been able to, for the first time ever (quite possibly) to keep up on the massive loads of laundry (we are a family of 7 after all), keeping the dust bunnies at bay, napping, and quietly contemplating life's ever changing ebbs and flows as we get ready to expand a bit (more on that another time). I've been really keeping track of my thoughts, purging the ones that are not useful and filling that space with prayer as I work. I've been keeping my eyes peeled for those irreplaceable moments, like the one above, that inspire me to take a step back from "keeping up" and letting go a little bit, too. I am a Libra, after all, so balance is a big thing for me. One of my greatest escapes is being able to create with my children. As I've got many projects going, in my head and in my hands, the littles and I were able to steal away a cool, wet afternoon and make an Autumn Fairy Crown.

For the foundation, I simply cut a piece of felt and needled a piece of yarn about an inch from the ends of the felt, both sides. This was my easy attempt to have a crown that could fit many heads.

On their morning walk with Dad, the girls gathers some colorful leaves for our crown. We dipped them in beeswax and let them dry. After they had cooled enough to touch, we hot glued them to the face of our crown. I wasn't able to capture many photos of the process as I was much to concerned for all the hotness.

I love this picture. Charlotte is such a beauty and she adored wearing this crown and boy, did it smell good, too!! We ended up giving this crown to our neighbor. He is our resident Garden Gnome. If he isn't spending the day toiling and digging and planting and harvesting, well then, I have not a clue what he does. Maybe sleeps, possibly in his garden. Anyway, it was he's 78th birthday and we couldn't think of a better way to celebrate the beautiful soul that he is. 

*We've heard through the grapevine that our Garden Gnome friend has been spotted wearing his crown throughout town these past few days! Maybe, just maybe, if you live near us, you might spot him. He'd be kinda hard to miss with such a lovely headdress :)

So many apples

My nice red rosy apple has a secret midst unseen;

You'd see if you could slip inside,

Five rooms so neat and clean.

In each room there are hiding

two seeds so shining bright;

Asleep they are and dreaming

of a lovely warm sunlight, 

And sometimes they are dreaming

of many things to be,

How someday they'll be hanging

Upon a Christmas tree.

This surely has been a wonderful year for our apple crop. Our trees are heavy with fruit just waiting to be picked. We've spent many an hour picking and eating, picking and baking, picking and saucing. There seems to be no end in sight for our apple trees this year, and for us, that is just fine!

Even our sweet little Red Chicken comes for jaunts with us on our picking excursions. She loves to pick up the little pieces the girls throw on the ground for her, not to mention all the bugs and other yummy stuff she finds in the tall grasses. 

We took our haul of over 50 lbs. of apples over to my folks house to process them all into applesauce. This is something we all very much look forward to sharing together. There is a deep-running connection within the collective effort of multiple generations working together, getting our hands dirty, and turning many apples into gallons of golden, sweet, delicious applesauce. 

We had some really wonderful helpers. Both Charlotte and Seraphina had their hands busy washing almost the whole lot of apples while I worked next to them chopping the apples and getting them into the pot for their first cooking.

This is just the first of 5 pots of apples the were cooked down awaiting their turn in the food mill.

My Dad, I love him dearly. He's always so eager and willing to work with me on whatever crazy scheme I concoct for myself. I can always turn to him for assistance, advice, or just venting. He's a man of few words but a man of dedicated service and devotion. 

Here we have over 5 gallons of applesauce! My Dad and I plus Charlotte and Seraphina all worked diligently on processing these big batch of apples within 5 hours time. It made for a long afternoon but an afternoon well spent.

With all the apples we still have on our trees we're able to continue baking through the Autumn season. Pies, cakes, more sauce.....you name it. This past weekend we made the Apple Cake from the story Apple Cake by Nienke van Hichtum.  I adjusted simply by changing the flour from regular all purpose to gluten free and added some oats to the cinnamon sugar topping. I was concerned at first whether or not the cake would come out edible and not just a hard lump of dough. We were all pleasantly surprised at how delicious it was, however a bit dense, adding a bit of cream or better yet, a caramel ice cream, would have made the cake simply divine.

This might just be one of my new favorite cakes. 

If you don't have the book you can find the recipe here.

I hope you are all finding many uses for the apples in your life :)

{pretty,happy, funny, real}

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~  
Every Thursday, at Like Mother, Like Daughter!
{ pretty }

Autumn is in full swing here. The leaves are changing more and more each day and as you drive down the road you will undoubtedly leave a swirl of autumn leaves behind you. As I drove home late last evening I was captivated by the leaves that were falling from the sky like snowflakes and flooding the road ahead of me. Their bright colors shining in the light in front of me, that crackly sound as they skip across the pavement. At any moment during Autumn, I am captivated; by her simple yet elegant beauty, the peace and serenity of the silent hush that falls over a forest dressed in Autumn's cloak. Autumn is one of the prettiest times of year where we live. 

We celebrated the beginning of Autumn a few weeks ago by creating these beeswax acorns for a homeschool project. Their colors go beautifully with the myriad of Autumn treasures we've collected so far.

{ happy }

Going for walks and being outside just makes everyone plain ole' happy. Charlotte loves to find the perfect tree to climb and Seraphina is never too far behind. Lee would say that I like going outside less than everyone else.....what he seems to forget is that with a household our size (and growing) I'm constantly pulled into deciding if cleaning, folding laundry, cooking something, or sneaking in a few minutes of rest is more important than going outside. Some days, nothing is more important than being outside with everyone else......other days, that 45 minutes of quiet is a dream come true. I'm sure I'm not the only one who battles with this quandary?

{ funny }

This was one of the funniest half hours we'd spent in a long, long time! Here you can see the little ladies standing all in a row, like ducklings. Well, show them a few tap moves and turn on some music and the whole scene changes! Mind you, I only had my eyes on my two girls (Charlotte is the one with her hands behind her back in the middle and Kiki is the second from the end on the right side with the hot pink tights). Kiki is just 3 but will be 4 in just a few weeks. The older woman standing in front has been teaching tap classes for over 60 years. In fact, I took lessons from her when I was just 4 years old and danced with her until I graduated high school. It was such a beautiful circle of life scenario, bringing my girls to her for lessons. They couldn't have been happier. Lee and I couldn't have laughed more, though, as we watched the girls work hard to keep up with the teacher and the music. And even though there was a bit of skepticism with Kiki actually being able to keep up and follow directions, she did by golly. And blew the teacher away! 

{ real }

We spent a half and hour the other morning picking apples from the tree in our orchard. In that half and hour we picked over 50 lbs. of apples! Beginning yesterday at around noon we took the barrel of apples over to my folks house and began to process them from applesauce. After 4 hours of washing, cutting, cooking, and milling we had processed upwards of 5 gallons of applesauce. We let this thick, sweet and tangy sauce mingle on the stove with some brown sugar and cinnamon for another 45 minutes or so. This is probably the best batch we've had in years! Autumn is a magically time of year with it's bounty and gifts and abundance.

Of Strength and Courage

This passed weekend we welcomed the festival of Michaelmas into our home. This has become one of my favorite times of year, it's sort of like New Years to me. This time marks the beginning of the festival/holiday season, the weather has begun to change, the leaves are losing their vitality through beautiful changes of color and then gently dropping to the ground below, the world around us is preparing for winter's darkness and chill, the garden is slowly ceasing to produce the more tender crops yet harvests are full and bountiful to help us fill our larder with storage fruits and vegetables. Our inner strength is being fortified by the reminder that summer is over, the sunshine's light is looking and feeling less intense, our minds focus on having enough wood cut and stacked to keep our hearth burning for months, filling up the hay sheds for our livestock friends who will brave the changing weather out of doors, and watching as daylight diminishes a little more each day. For some, the coming of winter is a harsh time. Depression, sadness, loneliness,and isolation set in. This is why I find Michaelmas to be such an important time of reflection. As we notice all the changes around us and knowing that winter and blustery weather is right around the corner, it is imperative that we look within to find the strength and courage to tame those inner dragons that make the winter unbearable. We have this time to prepare, accept, and honor the many months ahead that we will lack actual light, but instead will need to depend on our own inner light. We must guide ourselves through the darkest of hours lighting our way with the candle the we've lit and that burns within. This is what Michaelmas means to me.

To begin the honoring of St. Michael we made our annual dragon bread. They are always so much fun to make, the kids love seeing him come together. My only problem this year was finding a recipe that uses a gluten free bread recipe that can be molded and eaten. Most gf bread is quite liquidy and cannot be molded but ones that you can mold are so dense they can hardly be eaten (and enjoyed). If anyone has a recipe to share, I would be most grateful. This year, we shared our bread with a dear friend who celebrates her birthday on Michaelmas. 

Another one of our favorite ways to celebrate Michaelmas is by crafting something. Last year, we did Michaelmas Shooting Stars. This year, we decided to dye some silk scarves, Courage Scarves, that we could wear throughout the winter that will help remind us of our inner light that is shining  and guiding us through our darkest days. 

We made a dye bath out of golden rod harvested from our backyard.

After the dye bath cooled a bit we added a few tablespoons of alum (something I'd never used before when dying but thought we could try it. I'm so glad we did. It was so magical to see the golden rod dye turn from a greenish/yellowish/brownish color to a vibrant yellow).

We put the silk scarves into the the dye bath and stirred them and let them soak for a bit in the sunshine.

After long last, we pulled the scarves from the golden yellow water and watched as they shimmered in the sunshine.

We hung them up to dry and within moments, the scarves were ready to be worn. And just in time, too! Charlotte had her very first dentist appointment shortly after our scarves were completed. She wore her scarf to the dentist to symbolize the courage she was mustering (and desperately seeking) to get her through her first visit to the dentist. It was a beautiful event to witness as she struggled with the fear that was bubbling up inside of her. After a thorough discussion by the dentist about what was in store, Charlotte (albeit teary eyed and worried) held on to her scarf and with much bravery and valor, opened her mouth wide and had a very successful and quite funny experience at the dentist.

All in all, it has been a perfect welcoming into the season of Michaelmas. Our celebrations will continue all week as we continue to harvest apples for applesauce,  make some calendula healing salve to get us through the dryness of winter, read "The Kite" and then make a kite that we will hang up in our schoolroom to remind us of our ability to soar and discover all the amazing soul parts of ourselves that help us to be strong and courageous.  

Many blessings to you and yours as your travels take you closer to Winter. May you be warmed by the light that burns deeply inside of you. 

Mixing it up

Things have been a little mixed up here the last few weeks. Lee has been between jobs so he's been home a LOT more. This, of course, is a wonderful thing. However, he also poses as a distraction to the very new rhythms and routines the girls and I had been working on to get homeschooling underway along with our usual daily rhythms. How ever wonderful it is, it's been feeling a little, well....mixed up! 

Having Daddy home means there are lots more opportunities to drop any type of plans and go on an adventure, which of course, the littles love. Seraphina would be happy to solely exist in her backpack. There are so many wonderful places to visit on the land we live on; tent platforms, streams, fairy ponds, sheep, deep woods, neighbors, and secret passages that lead from one end of the land to the other, each one rich with treasures to be discovered. 

Since any type of  "formal"schooling has been put on the back-burner (for now) we've been taking every opportunity we have to use as a learning experience. Such is our life, really. This is one of the reasons why I so love homeschooling....even if book work isn't accomplished I can guarantee we have all learned something wonderful, crossed paths with some beautiful people, played and laughed. Like this little moment above. We've been researching and connecting with area beekeepers because we wish to have a beehive in our midst. We dream of having one right in the center of our garden, the heartbeat of the space that produces and nourishes our bodies and souls. We hope to move a hive to our home next spring.  I've found plans to make a homemade skep.....they are beautiful. Anyway, this was one of the stolen moments where accidentally we all had a lesson on bees.

Having Daddy home also means that I'm able to spend a bit more energy than usual baking and learning new techniques for our gluten free pantry. My usual crutch has been using an already mixed gluten free all purpose flour. It hasn't been my favorite to work with and the results are usually not very exciting. The taste isn't all that great and well, it's made those of us who aren't gluten free really dislike the idea of gluten free anything. As a result, I took the plunge this week and experimented with a gluten free cookie recipe that blends two different flours as it's base as well as a gluten free all purpose flour blend that I mix myself using several different gluten free flours. The *new* gluten free all purpose flour I tested with homemade cheese crackers. Each new recipe has (so far) turned out to be far superior than what we've used in the past. I now have 5 - 1/2 gallon mason jars filled with my new gluten free flours that will be the foundation of all my baking moving forward. It wasn't easy to stray from the norm. I've always been a bit nervous and unconfident when taking risks in gluten free baking, it's science after all, and I find a bit less forgiving than baking with wheat flours. Either way, it's been a very successful couple of weeks.

Who can resist a golden, buttery, cheesy cracker?

I'm sure when Daddy goes back to work we'll see more of this kind of work but for now......we'll be seeing much more of this...

and this.....

If you're interested in what recipes inspired me, I've listed the links below :) xoxo

 Gluten free all purpose flour

Gluten free Cheese Cracker recipe

* I did augment this a bit by adding more salt, cheese, and dry mustard. My next batch I will use a spicier cheese and a bit more salt, still! Overall, it's a really yummy cracker and I found that the crackers are done at around the 8-10 minute mark rather than 12-16 minutes that was listed in the original recipe. 

Welcome Autumn!

The world is full of color,

'Tis Autumn once again;

And leaves of gold and crimson

Are lying in the lane.

There are brown and yellow acorns,

Berries and scarlet haws.

Amber gorse and heather,

Purple across the moors.

Green apples in the orchard

Flushed by a glowing sun.

Mellow pears and brambles

Where colored pheasants run.

Autumn has peeked her pretty head from under the warmth of Summer. It was a cool and blustery Autumn day here yesterday. Very cool, in fact! The cool day inspired me to break out the slow cooker and have dinner steam away all day, creating warm and delicious aromas of root vegetables and rich broth that made me wish we had the wood stove on! Outside chores were done, the chicken coop was tended to and our yard is now a bit more bare as large plants have been cut back and our outside seating is being collected before it migrates to it's winter storage. The garden still has plenty to harvest; kales, pumpkins, and squashes, and the orchard still has much to give over the next few weeks (even though it was dutifully picked through the day before, you'll see why in a moment!).

With the chill of yesterday I was also inspired to mull my first bit of  homemade cider. Every year as a way to celebrate the Equinox and the Autumn Harvest, the community we live in gathers together to pick apples and press cider. It's a very full day beginning just after breakfast and lasting until supper time. 

Apples were picked all day Friday and first thing Saturday morning. The apple washing began after breakfast and lasted until the final pressing (over 7 hours of apple washing!!!) The first cider pressing began around noon, this is what you're seeing above. 

As you can see (and some you can't even see) there were a TON of apples collected. We had 5-7 folks washing, 2-3 folks working the chopper, 2-3 folks working the press, and 1-2 bottling the fresh apple cider. For weeks, everyone (11 households worth) collected bottles to use for storage.

This was taken after the first 8 gallons of juice were pressed. We bottled just about 75 gallons of juice and ran out of containers for the last 25 gallons. We ended up using 5 gallon coolers for immediate consumption within our main house. Each family went home with about 7 gallons of juice which will ripen and sweeten over the winter time in our freezers! 

It's not easy to turn the crank of a full cider press, it takes a LOT of strength. Everyone present each had their turn at pressing cider from the apples. I was impressed by how few turns I could actually complete (I think, maybe seven) while Casen gave the crank over 100 turns and the gentleman he is standing next to worked the press all day!

We never cease to be amazed of all the glorious gifts we are given. To spend a day so rich and lively with some really wonderful people, creating memories, making cider, working hard, sweating lots, and laughing together. Living in an intentional community certainly is work, learning, loving and growing from each other. It's days like this that remind me completely of why we're here at all. 

We wish you all beautifully colored days and nights that are warmed and delighted by the smells of wood stoves and mulled cider. Happy Autumn!

{ pretty, happy, funny, real }

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~  
Every Thursday, at Like Mother, Like Daughter!
I haven't participated in {pretty, happy, funny, real} in a long while and I'm so glad to be back. This is one of my all time favorite link-ups out there. Focusing on the beauty and happiness of life through pictures really speaks to me. This series is my homage to the end of summer. We had some really beautiful high points that have been sticking with me and carrying me through the changing season. Thank you for stopping by to see how our everyday life brings our family much contentment.   ~ Marcy
{pretty}

Yesterday's heatwave had me dreaming of our recent trip to the ocean. It had been our first ocean visit in 8 years and the first for our three youngest. I daydreamed all day about sitting on the gorgeous beaches all. day. long. Soaking up the sunshine, embracing the ocean waves. Watching the children bask in the openness of the ocean's expanse. Having sand in every crevice and roll and crease. This was our best vacation ever and I miss it. Everyday.

{happy}

Every year our little town sees a County fair come through. We look forward to the week it is in town all summer long. The bigger kids look forward to a little bit more independence from us, walking around with friends and going on all the rides over and over again. The littles, well Charlotte anyway, is at her second year of really enjoying all the rides for smaller kids. Kiki, however, had stepped foot into just one ride last year and cried the whole time. She is our "non-risk taker". She likes moments of excitement when they are self motivated and where she is in full control. Rides are not that kind of excitement at all. This year was a new year for Kiki. She, of her own volition, got on a few rides and really, really, enjoyed them. She was all smiles and showed just a bit of trepidation; you could see her talking herself through. This evening, everyone was very, very happy.

{funny}

Summer means Daddy usually works more but this summer he has been home, lots. For better and worse. It is so wonderful to have Daddy home, even if he is just outside working around the house, the fact that his presence is felt, his voice is heard and his hugs are available at any moment, make our days so much more enjoyable. As a family, we do so much better when we are all together. Everyone feels held and heard, us adults feel supported and having a buddy around releases the loneliness and missing we feel when one of us isn't at home. I love my husband deeply. If only we didn't have to make money we would be content just spending every minute of everyday together, with our children, in our home, on the land. Then, life would be perfect. In the meantime, life is still perfect, just a different kind of perfect. 

This picture captured an impromptu "morning meeting" where discussions about George of the Jungle and boogers, various trees and our elderberry/peach smoothie were heard. Oh, and I can't forget Kiki's current photography series. She was very eager to discuss and show the many pictures she had taken in the course of the morning.  

{real}

Over the weekend we picked up our newest additions to the family, a flock of six Shetland ewes. We currently work with a flock of Oxford cross sheep that are kept mostly for meat processing. Living in an intentional community, Lee has taken on the shared task of shepherding with another family on the land. One of my deepest passions is working with wool. I love everything about it. Last year, I taught myself to knit and needle felt and the children learned to wet felt and finger knit. This year, our goal is to process our wool, from shearing to spinning (or felting). I was specifically interested in Shetland sheep because of their size, demeanor, and for the quality of their wool. Their wool is excellent for spinning, another modality of wool work I look forward to learning. Shepherding and working with sheep is a family passion. While Lee currently spends the most time caring for them (I'm working it in to my rather full day of caring for 5+ children and keeping the house) and the children visit and look forward to snuggling up and patting the girls on the head, I look forward to it becoming more and more a shared effort between all of us.

Nuts and Trees and Leaves, Oh My!

Our homeschooling experience has been rich and full these past few days. Yesterday marked the beginning of our first full week, and full it is! We were blessed to have Daddy home with us, which always makes our days seem as though they run more smoothly. I find that having a buddy around for the majority of the day helps me accomplish more, or I at least have help. Lee is our biggest motivator for taking walks about and exploring. While I really enjoy being outside and exploring, sometimes I find it really sits at the bottom of my "what's important for today" list. The girls get plenty of outside time; they swing, play in their sand box and the garden, and run about on their adventure park. Mostly, I feel compelled to use that quiet time they're outside for quick clean-ups, laundry, cooking/food prep, and to tackle the never ending pile of dishes. Some days I'm able to just let it all go, like yesterday. It meant way more to me to be a part of our little "field trip"!

Our goal with this meandering was to find varieties of nuts and leaves to take back home with us so we could learn about them. We learned all about the parts of a leaf, how the stem works, and the importance of the waxy, waterproof coating of a leaf. We learned about seeds and how they are all different for each tree. We learned about the two different kinds of trees that exist where we live and how evergreen trees hide their seeds in pine cones. Charlotte is investigating the inside of a pine cone in the photo above.We also gathered a bit of nature stock to create our Autumn Nature Table. Wow! We sure collected some bounty! 

We found piles of acorns, pine cones, milkweed pods, hickory nuts, many different and beautiful varieties of grasses, and leaves. Lots of leaves! Oh! And we picked our very first pumpkin out of the garden! 

To celebrate all the wonderful and beautiful gifts we found yesterday, I thought it would be fun to make beeswax acorns to add a bit of color to our table. We found plenty of acorn caps and used those. We simply warmed up our beeswax and rolled it and shaped it into the form of an acorn. Then, we topped them off with an acorn cap!

The girls love them, and so do I! They add a bit of whimsy and delight to our very colorful Autumn Nature Table.

What are you creating for Autumn with your littles?

* This post is part of the link-up over at Frontier Dreams for Nicole's Keep Calm, Craft On series.