Decorating Outside

Every year the boys and I man=ke an effort to decorate a tree outside for wildlife. This year we are even doing it without scrambling on solstice! We set out to make bird cookies last week and dehydrated citrus for some color.

We were joined by some friends, which is always nice . Mixed up some flour, oats, bird seed and whole eggs and then cut the dough before cooking it.

And then off to the trees a couple of days later. A wonderfully sunny day.

And any excuse to climb trees is good for Asher.

Favorite Books:: Right Now

We love books. That being said, I don't love all books and for the amount of time we spend reading to the boys, I want to make sure that the books in our home are ones that I love to read. Books that really no matter what, if someone asks me to read a certain story, I can honestly say, dropping almost anything that I would love to. You can see my last list here.

Maisie, by Alice Schertle. I love, love this book. I rarely read through it without tears coming to my eyes. I dream of being Maisie. Not only do I love that there in an inherent outdoor living theme, but the matriarch has been very important to me as I have reflected on the death of my grandmother and the boys great grandma... really love, everyone needs to read this book. I was lucky to find mine at a quarter at Transitions in Urbana and it is well loved from a library, so I may be replacing it with another used copy as I would read this book everyday.

I was thrilled when my Aunt gifted You Can Do it, Sam, by Amy Hest. This is such a sweet story about a bear delivering cakes to all of his neighbors for holiday time. It is the book we read on the solstice, before delivering our own gifts of food to neighbors and friends. I found this book after starting this tradition and was so happy to find it. Love the whimsical illustrations.

All in a Day and Market Day by Cynthia McClure. All in a day is beautiful. A simple poem set to beautiful paper cuts. The past is sailing off to sea, the future's fast asleep. A day is all you have to be, it's all you have to keep. Words to parent and live by! This book is a blessing to begin your day.

And Market day is just a lovely book about reminding yourself where all your food comes from. Something my boys love to read about and discuss (don't know where they get it). It is wordy sometimes, but you can shorten it easily.

Another thanks this round to my sister in law, Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site changed bedtime for River. I don't know if it was circumstantial, but once we started reading this book every night River seemed to be more ready for sleep. Perhaps it is a book he finally really just related to and loved, maybe it was being 2.5... I don't know but I also love this book. It has great rhythm and flow without having cheesy annoying rhymes. A must for all truck/wheel loving kids.

Sadie's Sukkah Breakfast. Another book that I simply adore. Such a cute story of a brother and sister fixing breakfast for themselves, taking it to the sukah and inviting their friends (stuffed animals). The brothers name is Ori, which was my pick for River and you can just feel that the sweetness of these children.

And my favorite short chapter books for both boys: The Tales of Tiptoes Lightly. Just sweet stories, no violence, just adventures of fairies, gnomes and mice. Some of the few Waldorf school inspired printed books.

Giving Thanks

I have been away from this space for longer that I had hoped, but life takes us on it's own adventures. Not that we have been up to much, but for us to be present in this place, present with the boys, present with the business, many things have been set aside. Many things I am slowly bringing back to my daily rhythm.

We had a lovely thanksgiving with friends and family. All of whom I am so grateful for. Also though are the friends who are no longer in our daily lives. Oh how I miss them and am so thankful for all of their amazing souls. Mamas, crafters, geniuses, awesome human beings that inspire me and daily motivate me to be a better person and for us to live the life we are meant to live.

I feel like we are hitting the true adjustment to our move. It no longer seems just like summer vacation when we see people less, now it is real. We are mostly alone searching for our way in a new place. While we are alone, we are happy, though the natural yearning for companionship other than family seems to be effecting some of us more than others.

We were thrilled to have so many people in our home for a feast. Thirty four pounds of turkey, and so much food, and all these people filled our hearts and home with the companionship we have been missing and now are willing to get out into the world again and seek.

And crafting came back too! While the turkey roasted, pies baked and the last minute details were prepared, I was able to whip up this needle felted garland from an old already felted scarf. I love needle felting!

Morning Adventure

We have been really slow to get out of the house these days. But these perfect fall, incredibly beautiful days are running out (rain the rest of the week) so I needed to get us out today and I am so glad that we found what we were looking for, a beautiful place close to home, sand, water, woods, trees and a great view.
Directly across from Ferry Bluff Natural Area, I could see these sandbars and knew that it would be an amazing place
The boys instantly got wet, which I struggled with too much this morning... but I would like to forget about my yelling about running through huge puddles in my crazy attempt to keep their shoes dry. I did successfully prevent Asher from swimming out to the other sand bar...
They got wet, dug in the sand. I enjoyed the view and explored the sand.
And thought about what a wonderful, amazing place this was.
We walked down river a bit.
And I came to the realization that this place is loved by a lot of people.
Mostly naked people. Which I really don't have a problem with, I just want to still be able to come here in the summer! I have known for over a decade now about the Mazo Beach, my friend parents knew of Mazomanie because of the nude beach, in fact most people bring that up when you tell them where you live. I just didn't think we would stumble upon it in such a manner, as me asking a man who was doing trail work on behalf of the Badger Naturist group if there were family volunteering opportunities to take care of the natural area. And he asked me if I knew where I was... which led to me finding out.
But, we climbed trees, ran and had a great morning... though I still need to deal with all of the sand that I stripped off my children.
and we will for sure be back.

This Seasons Garlands

I do so love things strung up on my windows, and pinecones are a natural fit for fall and winter decorations and are built for stringing up together. I think in the next month we will be making these again.

For these garlands all you need are pine cones and a roll of thread, I used an old sewing machine color that I most likely won't sew with, it is off brown, didn't know that was a color, but it is. This brown blended in the with pine cones which was nice. All I did was follow the natural spiral of the cone to wrap the string around one and a half times then moved on to the next.

I love the texture of pine cones and the effect you get when piling them on top of one another, the bigger pattern of the whole is pretty phenomenal... so we kept a bowl to stare at.

Happy Fall!

Ferry Bluff State Natural Area

We really have landed ourselves somewhere very special, which I guess was kind of the point in moving, we wanted our kids to be able to run and explore a creek close to their home, to grow up with a sense of awe to bodies of water, land shaped by a river, rises in the earths surface. A respect for the land that is hard to get in an area of the planet where so much of it's spaces have been made worse by human interaction.

With the help of a new friend, we found ourselves at Ferry Bluff, which just happens to be right across the river from the natural area closest to our home, Mazomanie Bottomlands. It was awesome to climb up on that bluff look across at the sandbars (I love sandbars!) and think of all the adventures to come for us on the banks of this river. To see kingfishers, bald eagles and sandhill cranes all so close to this place we now call home, witness the nocturnal activity of the beavers as we explore, it all makes the heartache of leaving a place that is familiar a bit more bearable.

To let my boys just play, thought staying out of the water isn't their best skill, was refreshing. They quickly took to being beavers with their new friends. Hauling branches into the river to float downstream. Gnawing branches (sometimes too literally), packing sand into their lodge, putting food stores by for winter... the natural world is amazing as is role playing with your kids.

I also felt on this day that River started to understand a bit of his name. We didn't have river in our vocabulary much, but now River lives by a river and will be able to explore his namesake. I don't know what he thinks of this revelation, but he knows that his name is something we call something else and it isn't another boy like Big Asher. It is all spinning in there.

Fall Adventuring

To continue familiarizing ourselves with our new environment, we have been spending time exploring the park across the street. The other day's hike didn't start off on the best foot, the parental challenges of motivating your kids sometimes are beyond me, we get off on the wrong foot, struggle out the door and then every decision seems to be a fight.

Sometimes we can get out of the funk, like this hike when we decided to forage for plantain for a hand salve, and raspberry leaf for tea. I love for our hikes to be open ended and for them to take the lead, which is the majority of the time, but sometimes it helps to have something to direct them... get us out of our bad morning.

Snacks along the way help, a sunshiny perfect fall day makes it pretty good.

And a hill for riding bikes down (they will be wearing helmets next time!) makes it pretty awesome.

River's New Vest

I found my needles and works in progress and was able to finish a knitting project before the temperatures went down. River outgrew his first vest and let me know that he wanted his next mama hugs in orange. I had originally planned on making a front pocket on his vest as he loves his wallaby pocket, but realized I wouldn't have enough yarn and wanted to do something, so I tried some cabled owls, which I love, and he loves which is more important.

Here he is as the wonderful toddler model sticking out his belly to show you his owl pals.

He gave the vest a true workout today heading downhill on his bike.

There are too many things on my knitting list right now. i know I have lived in Wisconsin for many many winters, but I have never mothered in Wi and want to know that the boys are warm when we adventure out. I know the biggest adventure spoiling for Asher is cold hands, yet the boy really does not like mittens as they interfere with climbing and most glove just suck at retaining warmth...