My how they grow!

It's chicken time again.

Let's do a little throw back 2009.  Our first chicken year

Here are the darling children choosing chicks in 2014.

Kale!

Simply put, I love kale.  Easy to grow, easy to cook, easy to enjoy.

I could go on and on about the benefits of kale, but if you have half a healthy mind you already know kale is great for you.  So onto the recipes.

Of course, there are kale chips, sauteed kale with short grain brown rice, and adzuki beans, raw kale, and kale in soup.  But I want to share my favorite kale recipe.  It is simple, fast, and yummy!

Marinated Kale Salad
1 bunch Kale, washed, stems removed, sliced thin
1/4 c fresh lemon juice
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup oil
2 tbsp maple syrup (I love grade B)
1 small red onion, sliced thin
2 carrots, grated
1/4 c toasted walnuts, chopped
1 sweet apple, chopped

Whisk lemon juice, oil, salt, and syrup together.  Toss with everything else!
Enjoy!

Sometimes I substitute sunflower seeds and cranberries and if I'm livin' it up pecans and pears.

I'd love to hear your favorite kale recipes!

GO KALE!

A morning in the bus

Wake up, stumble over the recycle bag; why can't I just throw this stuff out? Oh that's right, I care about the Earth. I find the 1ft by 1ft floor space that exists when the bed is made and I reach over the dining rm table to grab a Kleenex from the very front seat floor.  I spin around and fall back to the bed, lift a bag of recycle to the counter, giving me 1ftx2ft floor space. That's just enough to open the clothes cabinet (formerly a fridge). Today my clothes cooperate, they don't fall out when the door opens!

Half asleep I pick out clean clothes.  Honestly, this doesn't happen daily. But my skirt from yesterday wasn't warm enough for the morning temps. The next step and this happens daily, is to stuff my sleeping bag and fold the sheet. A sheet under my bag feels less wanderer and more this is my home. James stuffs his sleeping bag , too. He has been awake for a while so he's dressed and nicely trying to get me into gear. Next comes a familiar routine: I flip the bed back into a rear seat and open all the curtains. He moves the misc stuff, a clothes bag, yoga mat, and daypacks, from the front seats into the back. The kids are "upstairs" sleeping so I take this chance to wash my face and hands with cold water. That requires moving the recycle bag to the floor and opening the sink cabinet. Clean face and hands! Time for contacts and a final breath of calm before getting the boys up. 


Today we've decided to let them sleep in their bags buckled up. I still have to wake them enough to safely move them down. We have about 2 ft to make this happen. Every time I attempt to move my sleeping children I realize HOW much they've grown!  


My breakfast time; cereal with bananas and rice milk. I have to move the recycle bag AGAIN!  It's blocking the kitchen cabinet. I sit in my tiny home and quickly eat my breakfast.  Wipe out the bowls, cereal is easy to wipe out without actually washing. And that is awesome because then I don't have to wash dishes. 


Now topper down, James and I work together because the heavy gear in the topper makes lowering it tricky. Once you start lowering,  it wants to drop hard and fast, potentially hurting us and pinching /ripping the pop top canvas so we use a nalgene bottle to prop it open just a little bit. The purple bottle happens to be the pee bottle. Hope that nalgene really is durable otherwise it will be a nasty smelly mess. Next comes the solar panel, we lower it, clip it in place and we are off.

Frogs, well Toads

We have been reading a lot of factual frog books, as well as folk tales and fiction. It has been a fun experience to growing our toads.

We collected some tadpoles from a local pond. We set up their home in a 10gallon tank. It had rocks, sand, a live plant, and creek water. We watched them grow and develop. Then they started dying. We read more. Turns out they were toads. Well also tadpoles eat plants, Frogs and toads are canivoruos. So the fat in their tail stump sustains them from the time they get out of the water until the time they start eating meat:)

Once we learned that we let them go as soon as they would hop on the rocks. We are hopeful for their survival. They eat a lot of insects. MAybe they will eat some aphids from the garden. THe boys put several in the shady spots of the garden.

We need to build a toad house for the garden.

observing without disturbing

LEarning to Listen, watch, and observe without touching, making noise, and generally disturbing the animals around us.

I made the boys sit on a bench on the edge of Lotus Pond (CNC) for 5 minutes. We were quiet. We watched. We listened. We saw and heard things that we hadn't in the past. In the past they are touching the water, being loud, and scaring the animals away.

We are going to continue this practice. Maybe it will lead to a quiet meditation at home. That would be really useful.


It was also Art on the Trails day at the CNC. SO we packed up our water colors and headed off. We also used colored pencils that they supplied. Terje and I drew a daylily. Ezra drew a frog, tadpole, and eggs, and a pond. Then off to more flowers and the pond. Ezra used muck to paint muck around his pond picture.

We also used the watercolor paints to paint pond scenes.

We saw the toads that are brothers to ours. So we do really think they are toads and not frogs. The boys found a few large bullfrogs, leopard frogs, dragonflies, adn a huge tadpole. We learned bullfrog tadpoles can take a couple of years to mature. They (like frogs) bury themselves in the mud over winter and then continue growing in the spring.

Thursday May 10, 2007

Our garden is growing so well. we have eaten spinach and 1 strawberry.
The pole beans and teepee are set to go. So are the sunflowers and the raspberries!
lots of herbs too. Now it is time for momma to weed and mulch.

The tadpoles are getting active. they are swimming all over the tank. we can see little leg sprouts forming!

Ezra read Brown Bear, Brown Bear today! Little to no problems!

Terje is starting to really recognize beginning sounds. He continues to rhyme words. I can hear Ezra trying to join in on the rhyming. Progress!!!

Terje finally stopped and listened to directions today! Can this please continue. a lot of our differences are over his in ability to listen to the WHOLE directions 1st.

Ezra and I set up a rope in the tree. Then we used the ascenders to climb a little way up. E flew up no problem. Terje had problems until he listened to the full directions.

They found all sorts of snails, slugs, and bugs in the neighbor's wood pile.

Ezra and I started to build, actually formulate a plan for a container water feature. We will get Dad's help with the logistics:) I think we may already own many of the parts. That's always good!

Thursday April 5, 2007

Aquarium with a plan.
We took notebooks and crayons so the boys drew fish/animals. Then we wrote their names down. I'd like to take this a step further and locate there homes on a world map..problem is i need a world map:) Terje also drew a picture of Jared. He is starting to add detail to his artwork.
Also Sharks and Starfish


The notebooks actually caused them to slow down and look at the animals. it gave me some time to read about a few of them.

Ezra is reviewing the 100 chart.

We read What is God? Terje wasn't interested but I can tell Ezra feels the feeling of God. It is kinda a segway into Easter.

Terje glued some work/pictures into his portfolio. Now I need Ezra to catch up on his portfolio.

We discussed the guinea pigs and how they depend on E and T to tke care of them. Which then led to the ? of who will care for them when we are gone? glad to see they get the point.
Getting them to pick up their legos was a struggle that tried my patience. They did it..then i taught T how to wrap up the vacumm cord. Meanwhile Ezra unloaded the dryer and washer! I was thankful for the help at that point. Slowly but surely I will get the boys to help around the house.

Monday 26, 2007

Nature Center- Wildflower trail with Katie and her kids. A little over a mile. Kids whiny at first...1st real hike of the season.

Beautiful flowers. Lots of lesser celandine, white trout lily, and salt and pepper.

Some mud, not bad.

Fynn and Clover came home with us. Inside/Outside...games, walks around the yard and creek.

Looked and saw lots of Forsythia on the way to drop off F & C.

Terje is now pointing them out to me:) and saying their name. Call it a flower and they call it a flower. Call it a forsythia and they will too!