Tidbits from the past few weeks

Here's a sampling of randomness from some ordinary moments around the home the past few weeks.

 

A good friend of ours agreed to mentor the boys in painting for four sessions.

I traded her a grow light for it.

Guess who got the good part of the deal?

 

Anna has gone above and beyond what I was even hoping for and my boys have eagerly completed their homework for the next session, even though it's not due for another seven days.

That's huge.

 

Yay!

If you know Anna, you know what love and attention to detail my boys are receiving from her.

She's wonderful.

 

We've been blessed by some amazing works of art at sunset this last week.  Whenever I see a sight like this my mind always thinks of how the Heavens declare the glory of the Lord.

Amen.

 

Not only did I manage to give four boys haircuts in the last week but my onions needed a trim, too.

Aren't they unruly?  I'm happy to report after their haircut they are standing tall and proud and growing strong again.  AND, we have our first recordable harvest to file under 'onions' for the year.

 

1/20th of a pound.

When one works so hard to provide their own food every single harvest counts.

 

We enjoyed minced baby onion tops over our soup last night.  Divine.

And I only have 999 and 19/20ths pounds to harvest from our garden to reach my goal of 1000#s!

 

 

I've been experimenting with sourdough this winter by catching my own starter and feeding him {it?} faithfully.  He's taken on a personality of his {its?} own on our counter and is affectionately referred to as Mr. Bubbles.  The boys are quite sure I have lost my marbles at this point, but that's okay.  It's good to keep them on their toes and wondering what Mom will do next.

 

Despite being an extremely busy stay-at-home-homeschooling-homesteading-home-doctoring kind of person, I still have time for a slumber party every now and then.  Apparently last night I had a slumber party with Luke Skywalker and Jenga Fett.   A little secret here on boys and love languages- if your little man feels you are worthy to sleep with his favorite Lego minifigs that is just like  receiving a four page love note from said child.  Girls might make a beautiful picture with markers and bubble letters and lots and lots of hearts singing the praises of their mothers...boys will trust you with their most precious Lego pieces and that means the world to them and to me.   It was an honor to wake up and see these guys sparring at my feet at 6 o'clock this morning.  I truly felt loved!

 

Keeping with the Star Wars theme-- which is at epidemic levels in our home right now and please come soon Spring so we can concentrate on bike crashes and hiking in muddy creeks -- I found some Ewok puppets playing in the onions this morning as well.  I was told that our guest room makes the best forest in our home, and it's no wonder because...

 

Tarver-made Ewoks for Ry and Langston

 I am the proud mother of over 500 seedlings right now.

The air quality in our guest room is amazing.

 

 

And with all that typed and saved, I must return to the needs of my family.  A few young men need to be read to this afternoon, there is still vacuuming and laundry to finish up.  Chicken Noodle soup to start for this evening's meal.  Mr. Bubbles to feed and make fresh bread from.  A boy who has sheep to tend to at a farm not near enough to our home.  And a few plants to water, too.

 

By the way, am I the only wondering why I didn't get issued that maid servant at the birth of our first child?  I've always wondered about that ...

Surgery

Thankfully all is well.

It only took two nurses, one Mom and a very strong doctor to remove the lump on the side of his neck.

And a few threats about needing to call Dad and maybe some minor bribing with DVDs from the library and his choice of *anything* for supper. {Dr. recommended chocolate cake, good grief!}

 

Now that it is all said and done he is happily enjoying the victory of 'having my bump amputated!' and bragging rights about getting stitches.

 

{I'm bragging about wrestling with a bull this morning as that is what it felt like!}

 

Enjoying a Star Wars DVD marathon today and Valentino's pizza - no peppers.

 

And thankful.  The doctor didn't seemed concerned at all with what was taken out.  So thankful.

June Harvest

From our little plot of ground the Lord has provided,

June Totals:

60.49 pounds of garden produce

23 eggs

8 bouquets of flowers

 

Looking forward to July totals with hefty tomatoes and cucumbers...

Manly Porridge

Because this is how breakfast goes down around here - it has to be manly.  All these adventures to fuel, work to do, play- breakfast has to be hearty!  Here is how we do porridge around here.  Enjoy!

 

Set 4 cups of water to boil in a large pot.  Once boiling, turn the heat down and add 2 cups of milk; stir.  Add in 4 1/2 cups steel cut oats, 2 cups peeled and chopped apples, 1/2 cup ground flax seed.  Cook about 4 minutes just barely under simmer.  Add in 3/4 cup coconut, 1 cup chopped nuts {almonds, pecans, etc.}, 3/4 cup dried cranberries, 1 cup brown sugar and 2 Tbsp. apple pie spice. Cook a few minutes longer over low heat, stirring occasionally and adding more milk as you see fit.  When the oats are cooked, scoop into serving bowls, cover with a slosh of heavy cream and a touch of maple syrup.

Out of Service

For a while.  Ryland learned a good lesson about not driving fence posts in his sandals tonight.  He'll be off his feet for a few days as we let this deep gash heal.  So thankful for Steri-strips, Tea Tree oil and homemade salve.

I'm very thankful for older brothers who enjoy reading Tintin to our little patient to help keep him still.

And so thankful for my awesome nurse-Amy in Canada who gave us a duct tape tip!  We'll keep you posted, but I can tell you Ryland is pumped at the prospect of being duct taped.

Thanks for your prayers for healing!

Taco Tuesday Tutorial

Taco Tuesday - a tradition near and dear in the hearts of everyone residing under our roof.

It is such a big part of our family that I thought I'd share ...

1. Mid-morning: Add 10 c. filtered water to your crockpot and turn it on HIGH.

2. Forget about your crockpot and supper because you are explaining right, acute and obtuse angles with one of your sons while simultaneously explaining to another son why he can't use the comics for his current events report this week.

3. Soon after lunch remember that your beloved varmints will be hungry again in just a few short hours and get the package of dried black beans out of the pantry.  Say a sincere prayer of thanksgiving to our Lord that you still have a bag of black beans in the pantry and you don't have to make a run to the store after all.

4.  Pour a 2# bag of dried black beans on the counter, sorting out the bad beans and debris from the beans.  You have to watch it because quite often there will be little stones in with the beans.  Make a pile of bad beans and debris and put the good beans in a colander.

See the little stone in this pile of rejects?

5. Once all the good beans are in your colander rinse well under cold water.  Add beans to the hot water in your crock pot and leave it be for about 4-hours, on HIGH.

6.  After about 4-hours your beans will look like this.  At this point, I begin cooking 2#s of hamburger in a skillet.  Meanwhile, I like to drain 2-3 cups of liquid from the cooked beans, leaving some in there so the seasonings have something to soak into.

7.  Add your seasonings!  Whatever you normally use for your taco night will do.  Sometimes I have enough bulk ingredients on hand that I don't have to pull out the premixed taco seasoning.  Tonight I didn't so I added about a Tablespoon of *RealSalt* {please, for the sake of your health - make the switch.  You can find this at Target!}, about 1/2 cup of the Taco Seasoning, 1 Tablespoon of Cumin and 6 cloves of garlic.

For your health, garlic.  Beautiful, beautiful garlic . . .

8.  So, you've added the seasonings to your crock pot, the ground beef is browning gloriously and it is now time to start mixing the dough for your tortillas.  Here is a recipe which makes enough dough for 16 tortillas.  This is enough for the average sized family but I have found that for our crew I need to double it.  But, for tonight we'll keep it small and simple.

To your mixer bowl, add:

4 cups freshly milled hard white wheat

1 1/2 cups filtered water, slightly warmed

1 tsp. Real Salt

1/4 cup Olive Oil.

Mix barely, like 30-seconds'ish.  The trick to beautiful, stretchy tortillas is having a very wet dough.  Add a bit more water if you need to.  Once you have mixed, cover your bowl and let the dough rest for 30-minutes.

9.  By now your hamburger should be done and it is time to throw it in the crockpot.  Once added, mix everything together really well, replace the cover, turn the crockpot down to LOW and you can start grating your cheese or setting the table or reading your mail since we need to wait for the dough to rest.

10.  About 20-minutes into dough resting, get your tortilla press out and start preheating.  If you don't have a tortilla press, you can still make the tortillas!  You will just need to preheat a skillet instead.  You can use a rolling pin to make your tortillas nice and flat.  In any case, divide your dough into 16 equal pieces.  It helps to have some butter standing by as the press can start to stick once the dough starts to dry out.  No one I know ever complains about extra butter around here so it just seems more like a bonus.

11.  Pat each ball into a small disc, then quickly

12.  Place on preheated tortilla press, and 

13. Quickly and firmly press down about 4-5 seconds or just until you start to hear the first squeals of steam.  Any longer and you run the risk of 'blowing' your tortilla.

14. Beauty, eh?  {That's for you, Amy D!  See, I do have a bit of Canadian in me!}

15.  The rest is pretty self-explanatory, transfer to serving bowls, ring the dinner bell, etc.,

Taco Tuesday is a good thing.  Maybe it will make its way into the heart of your homes as well!  Let me know if it does.

Preschool Pre-Med

* No cookie jars were harmed during this exercise.

Today's Clothesline

Brought to you by a Summer Stomach Bug

Who Knew?

Who knew Lemongrass Underarm Lotion could look so pretty?

Or be so popular?

Who knew that I would still have so many friends after declaring my own armpits aluminum free ?

All four samples have been spoken for - so cool. If I was unable to hand deliver yours then you can be watching for it from your friendly United States Post Office Mail Carrier this week.

Unless I am truly snowed in from the winter storm we are having. Then you'll need to allow a few extra days for delivery. Stay tuned. . .

Scenes from my kitchen

It's Friday, the end of the week and I had a bit of time this morning to reflect on how our week went. God is so good! I was also thinking, as I put my sprouted wheat into my food processor this morning to make bread, about the different things that came out of my kitchen this week. Probably not what an 'average' kitchen produces, so I thought I'd share a bit.



First, though, this really was a scene I could see from my kitchen as I was tidying a bit. My two youngest looking at my second oldest from the window, as my second oldest refilled our bird feeder. So sweet! And this really is not a posed picture. This is the kind of fruit we get to enjoy when we, as Moms, roll up our sleeves and, with God's grace, commit ourselves to making relationships a priority in our homes, according to God's word.





This is a scene from my food processor- Sprouted Wheat. Generally I don't take the time {these sprouts are 3 days old} to sprout my wheat and I just throw the wheat berries in my Nutrimill and grind up fresh, hot, tasty flour. I decided to make the time this week to try out a new recipe for my family- especially since we have officially hit the doldrums of winter and the only decent produce available is. . .bananas. Ugh! The extra nutrients my family will gain by eating sprouted wheat should help us hang on until things come into season again.





Another scene from my kitchen this week- Homemade Elderberry Syrup. Elderberries are wonder-berries and so good for immune system support! Generally I buy an awesome syrup called Berrywell to keep our immune systems at peak awareness during these winter months, but last summer a friend gave us a TON of elderberries. The boys and I stemmed and cleaned them, then froze them. This week I made my own version of Berrywell and I must say that we can't tell a difference between our homemade version and what we were buying. Making this ourselves is much cheaper, but working with elderberries is very time consuming and I believe that the Berrywell we were buying is worth every.single.penny.

Another scene from our kitchen- the initiative of our helpful 3-year old! We made a Target run yesterday and Langston helped put groceries away. Maybe I had just never realized that penne rigate needs to be refrigerated?

{And, no, I haven't learned how to make my own pasta yet. . .but give me an afternoon when the laundry is all caught up and math papers are corrected and I can guarantee you I am going to do it!}

Perhaps the strangest thing to come out of my kitchen this week- Homemade Deodorant. Wait!Don't click the 'close window' button at the top of your screen until you hear me out! {Still there? Hello?}

I've been looking for a natural deodorant for years, knowing how dangerous the aluminum and other chemicals in regular deodorant is for me. After trying many store bought 'naturals' with no success, I had almost given up. Okay, I had given up. Then last week, I found a Homemade Deodorant recipe on one of my favorite blogs and decided to give it a try. Of course, I tweaked things a bit {I am an obsessive tweaker} by adding essential oils of tea tree, rosemary and lemongrass.

The result? I cannot believe how well this works. I repeat: can.not.believe.how.well.this.works. How long have we been convinced that chemicals and companies can do better than natural and made at home?

I ended up with four sample size 'extras' because the container I used was a tad small. I was so excited about the success of this recipe that I told my husband I wanted to share the good news and extra containers of Natural Deodorant with everyone - and he promptly gave me one of those sweet if you do that you might not have any friends or family who will claim you any longer looks. Not that he would be one of those friends and family. I think. I hope.

Anyway, if you have made it this far and did not click 'close' when Homemade Deodorant first hit your eyes and if you would like to give this recipe a try. . .you can quietly and discreetly leave a comment at the bottom and let me know you are game. By the way, did you know that aluminum has been connected with breast cancer? And no wonder, when you consider the position of your arm pits on your body. {Mercola.com is a great place to start any research.} Am I trying to shame you into trying this recipe? Perhaps, but it is only because I care about your health.

Just leave the word 'Lemongrass' in your comment and NO ONE will even know what you are talking about. I'll figure out how to get one of these samples to you, along with the recipe I used.

Have a beautiful weekend!

P.S. Even if you are not interested in 'Lemongrass' and want to leave me a note to let me know that, despite my granola-ness, you are still my friend it would make me smile. :-)