Did You Know?

111 pounds of grapes dries down to 4 gallons of raisins?
It takes about 30 minutes to pick that many grapes, and almost 3 days to dry each batch.
Black Manukka grapes make the world's best raisins.

Not New Furniture

The Iowa Grandparents are visiting right now- here with time for punkin chunkin, costume making, fall decorating and Halloween preparations. And in the spirit of preparing the house for their visit we recovered the dining room bench (which was tweed plaid with a giant rip so the boys could easily stick spaghetti fingers in and pull off bits of foam, you know, for fun) and the chairs (which were blue and purple chevron from 1942, probably, and, well, at least 50 years of stains). It was time.
And Joann was having a sale- I got two yards of decorator fabric for $12, instead of the $60 they were marked. And as much as I don't like Joann (for their ads, mostly- there are those emails nearly every day, and then the fliers that come way before the sale starts so I think I'm going to get that thing I want for 40% off until I get all the way to the register, past the aisle of candy, with three crying, fussy, antsy children- it's lame. Costco does the same thing.) it is practically next door, and there are always cute fabrics. And good deals.

The bench.

The top of the bench. Take a good look- by the time you see it in person it will indubitably be covered in spaghetti smears.

The fabric for the chairs.

And one of the chairs, finished!

Not quite the new dining room furniture I really want- 52"diameter round Mission or Shaker style pedestal table with leaves, simple little smooth (no grooves for goo to get stuck in) wooden chairs- but way cheaper and less hassle.

Capturing the Sun: Marigold Salve

In the spirit of using the harvest, enjoying the last summer sunshine, making do and making at home, Miles and I created a little homemade marigold salve.

He went out and picked marigolds himself, and washed them, took the petals off, and put the stems and heads in the compost, all by himself. I wanted to use beeswax, and almond oil, but we were out, so we raided the cupboards and came up with nearly a pint: unpetroleum, shea butter, coconut oil, Weleda baby oil, honey. Miles dumped all this stuff in a pan.
Next in the saucepan: all those lovely, sunshiney marigold petals. Miles picked, washed, and plucked petals himself. We brought our concoction to a boil, then simmered for half an hour. Marigold and honey scent filled the house. Then we strained the mixture into a jar, and let it cool. It is a lovely orangey-golden color, smelling flowery and a little bit sweet. The salve itself is soft-ish and melts right in to Miles' eczema-raw arms. Oh! How he hates having lotion rubbed into his skin! This is just perfect for after baths, and Miles is certain it is full of goodness, sunshine, "strongness" and bravery, perfect for Michaelmas coming up, the waning of the sun's season, and all of the things little boys need extra courage to face. "It's like a sunshine hug!"

This was my first attempt at making salve, and it was super easy. I'm thinking, of course, of all the variations to try: maybe something with all that mint outside, what about the lemonbalm, the echinacea? I have comfrey, too! Rosemary? Lavender?

The Rhythm of Our Days is Over There...

I made this neat table, our rhythm/schedule thingy, and tried to post it here, but it didn't work, so here it is, on the homeschool site, even though it's not strictly homeschool....

We're off on a grand adventure this afternoon. I'll tell you all about it later!
Hopefully I won't forget the camera, OR batteries!

Easiest Summer Landscape Fix

The sunflower! Who doeasn't love sunflowers? Cheap, easy, fast growing, drought-hearty, invincible, cheerful, and self-sowing.
The first spring after we bought this house there were some sunflower self-sown starts in the garden, and a little problem of the big low deck needing something around it to keep a new toddler from thinking he could walk off the edge. Perfect! Our deck is surrounded now by sunflowers, self-sown, and they grow around the sand pit, too, making it a shady little hidden place all summer. Along side the driveway, where nothing was growing and I never water? Sunflowers, cheerful sunshine faces bobbing along in the breeze, peeking over the fence, saying hello to all who pass. There's always one or two who make it through in the veggie patch, and they are always mammoths, with stems I can't get a hand around, and huge flowers, bobbing over everything like massive, benevolent scarecrows (and at least as effective as the straw and overalls variety!).
Their charm doesn't end with summer, either. As the seeds ripen they become a forest of standing, waving, living bird feeders. Even after we pull them from the ground the fallen seeds attract birds, all winter long. And somehow, beyond amazement, there are always still way too many popping up again in the spring, pushing eager heads up and out, searching out the sun with us winter weary citizens. Because of sunflowers we've been able to delay rebuilding the deck, installing irrigation, rebuilding the fence, doing all kinds of more expensive landscape fixes!
Unfortunately my efforts to harvest the seeds have ended poorly, but still there is hope, and my own nest full of hungry birdie-mouths eager for "homemade" sunflower seeds. Maybe this year!

Summer By The Numbers

Apricot syrup, blueberry jam. Jars full of summer- they even LOOK like sunshine, don't they?

This past week by the numbers:

320 books removed hastily from shelves as water seeped up through the carpet underneath. And then neatly put back, in tidy groupings which lasted about 1/2 an hour. 320 sighs from Mama.

180 pounds of cherries: picked, washed, stemmed, pitted, frozen, dried, fruit leathered, and soon to be jammed. I am SO done with cherries this year! Well, as soon as I make that jam, and some more fruit leather-it is delish, even if we are weary of cherries.

160 minutes we lasted at the Folklife Festival before we were too wilted and cranky and tired and in need of air conditioning and dim rooms and icy, slippery glasses of lemonade.

102 degrees Miles was for no apparent reason.

101 times I thought he might have West Nile Virus- all those mosquito bites on the 4th of July?

100 times I convinced myself not to freak out about it.

99 degrees when we went to Folklife this weekend. Cooler than past years, but really awful heat to bear just the same. Even with ice cream cones and a giant slip and slide powered by a fire hose and a big hill.

80 pounds of blueberries: picked, washed and sorted, frozen, jammed.

75 times I've thought about weeding the garden.

40 pounds of apricots: washed, pitted, canned, turned into syrup. More to be found, picked, dried, and made into fruit leather. Do you know anyone with an under appreciated apricot tree?

18 trips down said slip and slide.

12 pounds of raspberries: picked, washed, frozen. More to pick from our own bushes and made into jam. And dried whole, for granola. Maybe more to pick, over the mountains?

10 pm- average bedtime for boys this week of late nights, weird schedules, and innumerable chances to help Mama out!

7 tomatoes picked from our plants and eaten with silly happy grins on our faces. It's summer!

5 minutes spent weeding, er... making a completely unnoticeable dent in the overgrowth of weeds in my poor garden. Oh, it's sad. At least I had the foresight to plant the tomatoes on the edge, so they're first weeded! If that counts for anything, I don't know.

3 times our basement has flooded now, for 3 entirely different reasons. Still, it's three times pulling up carpets, getting out shopvacs and renting giant dryer-fans, pouring baking soda and vacuuming it up, tacking carpet down and putting everything away again. 3 can be a pretty big number, sometimes.

3 jars of strawberry jam eaten already. Guess I need to make more if we're to have any this winter!

3 lunches made entirely of ice cream. Shhh! Don't tell Papa!

2 plastic safari hats overflowing with candy brought home from a birthday party.

1 tired Mama.

Ping! (Strawberry Jam)

Is there any lovelier sound than the "Ping! Ping!" of jars sealing after their hot water bath? I think not. This is my first attempt at canning jam, since the boys only just decided they LIKE jam. Some of the strawberries we picked over the weekend skipped the freezer and turned themselves into jam.
I made 6 pints plus a little more, with 13 cups of strawberries, crushed with the potato masher, 5 cups of sugar (instead of 8, because I ran out, oops!) and three boxes of low-sugar pectin (instead of two, since they were all passed their expiration date). It doesn't go bad, though, I don't think, and I put in the third box since maybe the potency was affected, and since I didn't have nearly enough sugar for the recipe. I figured either way it would be okay- if it was syrupy we could always eat it with ice cream, or pancakes, if it was too firm it could be good filling for strawberry oatmeal bars or something. I processed them for 5 minutes, and everything sealed up fine. And the extra little jar I made for a tester turned out perfectly, amazingly. Not too sweet- it tastes just like strawberries, not sugar. The boys ate it for lunch. With spoons. Really.

Who Are You Trying To Impress?

Who are you trying to impress?
Are there visitors that get you in a frenzy, cleaning the house top to bottom, biting your nails hoping the children don't say anything untoward, bringing pretty but impractical or uncomfortable dresses up from the back of the closet, searching out complicated, impressive recipes?
Does an upcoming dinner party get you panicky, hoping everything comes together, praying that everything looks right, that the children don't spill or break anything?
Do you work harder preparing for a visit from a distant friend or seldom seen relative than for your own husband and children?
Do you throw toys in a basket and shut off rooms when your neighbor pops over but let your husband come home at the end of a long day to trip over toys and laundry not yet put away?
Do you refuse your friend's offer to help wash up the dishes only to later refuse the time to play a game with your children while you clean up on your own?
Who are you trying to impress?

It began to seem a little uncomfortable to me, some time ago, to put so much energy into trying to impress others. I mean, I like our friends, I want them to be happy and comfortable at our house, in our company, but if I had to choose, wouldn't I rather my family feel comfortable and happy at our house? If I only ever really clean the house when there's company coming, isn't that kind of dishonest? If I wear pajamas and spit-up shirts unless we leave the house or someone comes over, isn't that kind of weird? It began to feel important to me that I shouldn't be putting more effort into impressing others than I was putting into impressing my own family.

I don't mean to say my husband comes every evening to a freshly pressed wife with high heels and a lipstick smile. I'm no Stepford Wife, to be sure.

But I am mindful of the impression I am making on my family. Do I want my children to think that getting dressed is too hard a task to accomplish on a normal day? Do I want them to have the impression that the way we live and keep our house isn't good enough for others? Do I want my husband to think he has to work all day and then come home to more work? Do I want him to have the impression that I value him like a box of mac and cheese, but value a dinner guest like a crown roast?

I haven't got any of it really figured out. I'm still thinking about it.
Sometimes he comes home and trips on the fleet of toy cars, sometimes we have toast and cheese for supper. Sometimes I want my husband to know how hard it is, keeping a home and children, homeschooling and doing so much by hand. I almost always want him to come home and jump right in, because it never ends here at home, and while I don't want him to have the impression that he is responsible for EVERYTHING, I do want him to have the impression that he is important to us in everything we do. I don't want him to have the impression that the work I do isn't demanding, but neither do I want him to think that I don't feel grateful for the opportunity to be at home, to do this work.

Sometimes we have elaborate supper parties, sometimes I even clean up before hand. I love cooking and planning parties, and it is fun to share food and festivities with friends. I don't want our friends feeling uncomfortable, that everything is just so, that we've gone too far out of our way, that they can't make themselves at home or that the broken dish is a big deal, but at the same time I don't want them to have the impression that they're not special to us, that we don't value them the light they bring to our lives, that they aren't worth a little extra effort.

The last couple of supper parties we've had and the last couple of week+ long bouts of company that we've had have all been really fun, mellow and comfortable. I've tidied up, found recipes, cooked, but also shared the responsibility, and let our guests help, make themselves at home, and be comfortable and useful. It's gone really well, certainly for us, and I'm pretty sure for our guests as well. But still, there's the question, lingering around.

Who are you trying to impress?
How do you balance the whom and how and what of the impressions you're making?

How To:: Remove Gum From Hair

When your 3 year old drops his gum on the baby's head and tries to pick it but somehow smashes it in a little more, then tries to rub it off... what do you do?
In all of the years I've been a parent I've only once had to deal with this- and I just chopped a little bit of hair off- the boy had just given himself a lovely little haircut so I figured another chunk missing wouldn't really be noticeable. But the baby?! He hardly has any hair as it is! I wouldn't be able to cut it if I wanted to, it's so short. After a few moments of panic, a few attempts to tease it off his head, a few exasperated sighs and one under the breath "Oh, Miles, what next?"I found the solution.
Oil, it turns out, is the key.
I poured a little bit of the Weleda Calendula Baby Oil that I love so much on his head, let it sit a few seconds, then gently brushed the gum out with an old toothbrush. Good as new.
I think any oil would work- olive oil, canola, the usual kitchen staples. But almond oil with calendula and chamomile makes removing gum from your baby's head seem luxurious, almost spa-like. Guaranteed.

edited to say: And the next day, when you put the baby back down in the exact same bouncy chair without remembering it's still got gum all over it, and then later you pick up the baby and he smells curiously minty and his poor head is curiously gum-covered once again, know that a washcloth with a little oil poured on it, and rubbed gently over the baby's head will remove the gum with far less mess than pouring oil on his head and using a toothbrush. Really. But please, just clean the chair, right? We don't want to this every day, do we?

Window Cleaner

*

This is the mirror in the upstairs bathroom of my house. I think it's quite cute, except for the damage all the way around the edges. I hear that comes from ammonia, which is in lots of commercial window cleaners. Which is one reason why I don't use store-bought window spray. Uh, that, coupled with the fact that I'm too cheap to buy something I can make for almost-free, and the fact that mostly the boys clean the windows in the house (which might also explain why the windows are all smudgey except for a wavy bit of clean right along the bottom).

Anyway, my neighbor and I were talking about homemade cleaners. I shared my recipe for laundry detergent, and she told me about the window cleaner her Aunt always made. And the next day she brought me a bottle of it and a recipe card. How nice is that?

What's even better is how well it works. Without ammonia. For hardly any money. Here you go:

Lady Lee Window Cleaner

In a gallon jug pour 3T. Prell shampoo (or any cheap shampoo- VO5 works fine, I'm sure Suave or something would do just as well and it's always on sale for 99c a bottle) and 1pint rubbing alcohol. Fill with water, then pour into a spray bottle. Don't add more shampoo than called for.

I know it isn't as "green" as plain vinegar window wash, but I've never been impressed with vinegar for windows- it does fine, I guess, but not better than soap and water, and this solution is no-rinse and works really well. And smells better than vinegar, to me at least. And it's cheap. Like me.

*Okay, okay, I suppose I SHOULD have cleaned the mirror before taking a picture of it, but I didn't. Get over it.

Organization::Library Thing

Oh, my! I LOVE Library thing! I only just started, but here's the deal: you input all of your books, add your own tags (toddlers, mama-aya, nature, borrowed, loaned....) and comments (loaned to so and so, chapter 3 great for plant cycle lesson....) and you have the option to rate books, give away books you don't want, write reviews and view other reviews, compare your library with others, all kinds of fun, I mean, organizational tools.
I've been trying for a long time to figure out how to organize all our books- not nearly enough shelf space to do it neatly and categorically, and, really, lots of books are good for more than one category, right? So I'm just starting out, but this will work, I think. I'm tagging books with subject and age-group tags, so, for instance, when I'm looking for books to fill out a lesson on animals in winter I'll be able to search my library by preschool and elementary groups as well as season (winter) and subject (animals). The math books I just loaned, well, I'll know who to look for when I want them back, and the stack of science books I've borrowed, well, I'll know who to avoid until I'm finished with them! Just kidding... if you want them back now I'm happy to return them.