Wednesday, June 26, 2013

june. making, growing, reading...

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Greens awaiting transplanting. Kale, chard, collards. I love them all. But sometimes I think collards may be my favorite. Especially when I am starting greens in the hot summer and the collards are loving it very much.

Hopefully in the next week or so we will be getting all of our potatoes in to the ground, followed by carrots and beets. Late June, really summer just beginning, and we are looking towards our fall storage crops.

June has felt so completely summer already that for the solstice and since then we have been having rather quiet days. Jason took the girls to the library a few mornings ago and it seems like they have been mostly reading, writing, and drawing since then. Occasional visits out to the garden, watering, nice and cool in the evenings.

Oh, and there has been lots of watercolor painting happening too. We have mostly always done the wet on wet watercolor method (waldorf) but lately the girls have been enjoying free painting time with the regular watercolors in trays, nice Lyra ones, such beautiful colors, and so many pretty paintings created.

Sleeping summer babies. Warm afternoon naps.

More making from the girls...
A wool needlefelt family portrait.
Lots of little knitted kitties. I didn't even try to get a good photo, you can't see how sweet they really are.
Doll making. Little dolls. Doll making dreams.

I started a teething doll for Elsa but need to get back to it.
Knitting some longies/pants (elizabeth zimmerman) and that sure is going slow, finally dividing for the legs, and then I think I will become more motivated to finish.
Sewing a sunbonnet. Almost done. Maybe I can finish that today.
And more birthday sewing to be done. Birthday dress for a 13 year old!!!

And finally you can see a bit of Chessa's birthday dress. The blue fabrics I have had for many years, this post here shows a skirt that I made Chloe long ago with the same four prints. Whenever Chloe would wear that skirt I would think "chloe in blueberry land" (elsa beskow!) and now Chessa has her very own blueberry dress. (The skirt is still being occasionally worn, but getting quite tattered after 2 sisters and 8 years worth of wear!)
Well hopefully I can share better dress pics sometime, and hopefully I will get it's missing button sewn on soon too (didn't quite have time to sew on the button on birthday morning, now I keep forgetting it still needs to be done. The dress is worn all the time anyhow...)

So now on to the day. There will be more making, home chores, tending little seedlings and watering garden beds, bread baking, books...

I have been putting a lot of thought into next years homeschooling. I will have a 3rd grader and a 7th grader! So the homeschool papers, books, folders are in a big stack on the living room floor, my head is full of ideas, and I better start writing down some of these thoughts and ideas soon!

(This Waldorf bookstore is having a sale this week, including some titles by Jakob Streit. He is one of our favorite authors, we have some of his sweet gnome stories, animal stories, Saints stories, Old Testament stories. There are some of his books that will be good for our Middle Ages block next year. Oh yes, a definite favorite Waldorf author!)


(joining friends Ginny and Nicole...)


Oh, and also, Happy Happy Summer (or winter??) to all!!!


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Sunday, June 9, 2013

creek moments

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We sometimes go into the forest behind our house,
in the back of our neighborhood.

This summer we have a new forest to explore,
just minutes along the dirt road from our new land,
behind our new neighborhood.

Because I guess now we have two homes.
What a thing to be grateful for.

And this land, this is our "home" like no place before has ever been.

And this forest behind our land...
it really was like just a moment, just taking a first look.
Lupines blooming, flowers of serviceberry and hawthorne with a white perfectness against dark green leaves. Firs with their soft tips of fresh spring growth.

Three sisters by the creek. One littlest sister meeting her very first creek.
Oh yeah, there is a creek!!!
(Well we already knew it was there from maps, and then Jason checked it out once a few weeks ago, but we had not yet all been back there.)
So there are of course many more days of cool creek waterside and happy forest exploring days ahead for us!!!


I hope your first week of June has been full of goodness. Maybe it's hot everywhere, just like here. Really it was just one day of creek play, other than that it's been lots of summer busy-ness, the good hard work of summer kind of stuff. Seeds, gardens, horses. Land. Even a visit soon from family. Then other visits from old friends.
And already I am talking like it is summer, cause really it just feels so like it, and there certainly is no more waiting around for it, lots to be done and we need to get going...
Oh, and you have no idea how dirty these girls are!!
(But not really the baby...)
Wishing you all wonderful days ahead!!!


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