campfire...

About three or four miles down the trail we headed across a large meadow and chose a camp, nestled into the trees, with the river nearby.

I will tell you though, the night before we left Jason and I wondered if we were really going to be able to do this as a backpacking trip. The alternative being to go somewhere we could drive into, with warm blankets and extra food in the car. It just seemed like we might not be able to carry everything we needed for a two night trip. We decided we might be crazy, we laughed at ourselves a lot. Glad we decided to try...

Our girls are such good little campers, even after hiking all that way. We had to get started on camp chores right away. Gathering firewood, filtering water. And Chessa was the cutest little campfire helper!


She was so pleased to be helping with this important task.

And then daddy started the fire.

And the girls rested and watched. It can sometimes take a while to start a fire when you aren't using matches. (But don't worry, we had some matches just in case.)

Little tiny coal.

Little bundle of tinder.

Hands that work so hard to take care of us!

And fire to keep us warm during the chilly evening,

to cook our yummy dinner of carrots and potatoes,

and to dance for us in the dark forest night.

Next morning, back to camp chores, you want to get that fire going again quickly!


(It seems there is going to be a camping theme here this week...)


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Adventure Into the Forest

The long dirt road to the trail...

It was beautiful before we even got there.

Into that valley.
On this trail.



Beside this river.


For three wonderful days.

That is where we have been.

I will be back soon to share (lots) more pictures, I cannot even begin to look at them all right now, must rest, must prepare for our week...

Hope you all had a wonderful beautiful weekend too!


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bagels and pretzels and book winner...

So first of all, I am very happy to announce that the giveaway winner is Wabi-Sabi Wanderings.

I know she will enjoy this special book with her family, and I am excited to imagine something I have made finding a place in her beautiful home!



And now just a couple quick questions for you all if you don't mind...

I need to make bagels. I have made them only twice before. The first time they came out really good, but that was more than a decade ago and I don't remember much about it. The second time was last year, it seemed to take the entire day, and it was not good. It may be the only time I have ever made something entirely inedible. I sure did make a nice big mess though!

So anyone have a good bagel recipe that will definitely work? If it uses some whole wheat flour in addition to white flour then that would be especially good.

I also want to try the pretzel recipe in the Waldorf Kindergarten Snack Book. Have any of you made that recipe before? I am mostly just wondering how many pretzels I should be dividing the dough into, or how big they should be? We have never baked pretzels before...

Of course the Five Little Peppers had many exciting baking adventures!

Thanks so much to everyone who entered the giveaway, it was quite exciting. Some of you have blogs that are new to me and I look forward to visiting soon!

I hope you are all having a very nice beginning to your week. Wishing you many beautiful days!


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a little more Waldorf 3rd grade

Really my head is so in 4th grade world now, my notebook, papers, books often in my lap, even accompanying me outdoors this weekend. Lesson planning is so much fun, even if I am a little bit behind.

But more on fourth grade another time, for now here are the last of my 3rd grade pictures...

In November as part of a main lesson on time we made our calendar for the coming year.

I think I mentioned before that I let Chloe have a lot of freedom with her drawings last year. While I did miss sitting down and working on a picture with her it was also neat to see what she was coming up with on her own. I think this year we will do some of both ways.

We also wrote and illustrated a calendar verse that we had learned the year before. Since we had only recently introduced cursive this was good for practice.


In the middle of winter we did another time lesson. (I think our first block was 3 weeks, this second one was much shorter.) I am realizing just now that I don't have a picture of the clock that Chloe made, it was cute with flowers and butterflies, she enjoyed that activity.

We used a Dorothy Harrer verse to learn about second, minutes, hours...


So here is a more simple blackboard that went along with our lesson. But see how I managed to get some form drawing into the lesson? Chloe did similar borders on some lesson book pages. I'm feeling kind of clever for it. (Though also feeling not clever for neglecting form drawing for much of the year.)


And now on to fourth grade. And kindergarten too!


(And I guess depending on where you are there is still a bit of time left to enter the giveaway. I will announce the winner some time tomorrow evening.)


And oh yes, I must also say thank you to everyone who shared kind words on my last post. Really, thank you so very much, and you prove my point, there are nice people :)


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inspiration and gratitude

Well this week sure did not go as I had thought it would. Oh my what a hard day it was yesterday. Why does there have to be such not nice people in the world? And please can they stay away from me and my family?

Unfortunately there was a brief period of time yesterday when I felt totally defeated. I was trying not to be unnecessarily emotional, but I wanted to just run away and hide. (Where to I have no idea. The forest seems like a good idea...) I am not usually like that. Jason was dealing with the unfortunate situation much better than I was, usually he is the one to get more upset and so I guess I have to stay calm, try to be the one encouraging positivity. I never cry if he does, I don't know how it works, it's just how it happens.

It would have been simple to not be mentioning this here at all, but you know, life does not just always go on perfectly smooth.

And I am happy to say that I think I am all better now! (Situation not perfectly fixed, just me and us okay.)

Because you know what? There are really nice people in this world too. We have lots of them in our life. And they reach out with kindness to us in such a generous way. Somehow their simple words help make everything better.

There have also been some kind thoughts and words from sweet friends this past week that brought a smile to my face and just the times I needed it.

So grateful.


I was also cheered by playing with fabric.

Passing by the ironing board, these fabrics were laying out, I had set them together the other day. They make me happy. Started thinking about what I am going to make with them, started feeling better. Got lost in sewing thoughts.

And speaking of friends, we have had company this past week. One of Jason's skateboarding friends that we have known for many years now, he doesn't live here anymore but comes back to visit every summer.

So last week they went on a backpacking trip. Up a river, or, you might say, up a gorge. Since Jason had our camera I thought I would go ahead and share with you some of his pictures.








Jason says it was so incredibly amazingly beautiful (or something like that) and that he wishes we could all go there. But we never will. Because it was one of the craziest hikes they have ever done and they will never be going there again either!

This is near where they camped.

They took the easier way home.

(You may still enter the giveaway through the weekend. Thanks to all who have left comments so far...)

Wishing you many beautiful and inspiring days ahead!


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book love, vintage goodness, and a giveaway!

So somehow here I am writing my 100th post! Supposedly shy and quiet me.

I know I surprised many people by starting this blog, and I myself am surprised by how much I have enjoyed it. I had no idea what I was getting into, never thought that someone might come read what I was going to write, and I certainly never expected to meet so many wonderful people in the process!

So as a bit of a thank you to everyone who comes here to visit I am happy to be having my very first giveaway!

I have been waiting to share this book with you all for a long time now. It is called the Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney. Have you heard of it before?

It is one of the most wonderful books ever. Surely that is clear just by looking at that sweet picture! I have my own copy from when I was little and just a year or so read it with the girls for the first time. Now we have read it several times, Chloe often picks it up to read a chapter to herself, I cannot begin to tell you how much she loves this book! It is so nice also because it was perfect for both my 5 year old and my 9 year old, a great family read aloud book.

Really though I find myself at a loss for words when trying to explain the sweetness of this book. So how about a couple excerpts from the first chapter, A Home View... (and by the way, this book was written in 1881 so the language is sometimes a bit different...)

"The little old kitchen had quieted down from the bustle and confusion of mid-day; and now, with its afternoon manners on , presented a holiday aspect, that as the principal room in the brown house, it was eminently proper it should have. It was just on the edge of twilight; and the little Peppers, all except Ben, the oldest of the flock, were enjoying a "breathing spell" as their mother called it, which meant some quiet work suitable for the hour.

"To help mother," was the greatest ambition of all the children, older and younger; but in Polly's and Ben's souls, the desire grew so overwhelmingly great as to absorb all lesser thoughts. Many and vast were their secret plans, by which they were to astonish her at some future day, which they would only confide - as they did everything else - to one another. For this brother and sister were everything to each other, and stood loyally together through "thick and thin."

Polly was ten, and Ben one year older; and the younger three of the "Five Little Peppers, " as they were called, looked up to them with the intensest admiration and love. What they failed to do, couldn't very well be done by anyone!"

Wonderful I tell you! Please, go find this book to read with your little ones!

Of course I have to include some handmade gifts as well...
I have so much fun sewing with my vintage feedsack fabrics. They are mostly smaller pieces so I juts go through the stacks pulling out colors that catch my eye.

This day I was obviously inspired by turquoise! I think this may be called a trivet? Sure, that's what I will call it. Perhaps you could set your tea there, or a pretty vase of flowers.

I also have this little bag I made, more feedsack fabrics combined with organic cotton poplin. And then a small set of feedsack pieces for you to make something on your own.

Oh, and I should say, I sure am not giving away my own childhood copy of the book, but we have an extra one (an extra extra one, Chloe has her own special copy now too.)

So please do leave a comment if you would like a chance to win. I will also offer an extra entry if you follow my blog and another extra entry if you mention the giveaway on your own blog. I want to share this book with everyone! I will accept comments through next Sunday and announce a winner on Monday.

Hoping to get a couple other posts done this week too, feeling like I have lots to say these days, though really you will probably just be getting lots of pictures.

Happy beautiful days to all!


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Waldorf 3rd Grade Farming Block

Yes, I am still getting caught up on 3rd grade homeschool posts. I have one more after this and then I will be done.

So here are most, but not all, of the pages from our first farming main lesson book. This we did last autumn. I mentioned in my last homeschool post that gardening and farm visits were already a part of our lives...

So we decided we would just make up a little farm story. We created the story together, each day making one or two pages. The drawings she did on her own, something we did for the first time this year. (This was also the first year that I didn't make my own lesson book along with her.)


(Kind of funny because really we were still vegan at this time, although we already knew changes were coming.)


On this day we really were planting garlic. We have just recently been harvesting our first cloves.

I think I was off with my timing on this one. The wheat may have been harvested sooner.


On a recent farm visit Sara had been harvesting triticale. We did not thresh the grain with a flail though... (okay maybe no one does anymore...) first we were banging it in a metal garbage can (loud!) but we soon switched to spreading it out on a sheet and stomping on it with our shoes!

We are not growing our own grain yet but we sure do lots of bread baking.


And then it was winter. Quiet, cozy, restful time on the farm. And then it was spring, and unfortunately we did not get the next lesson book completed. Chloe still wants to continue the story but I'm not sure when that might happen.

At least we have been getting in lots of garden time and some good farm visits too!

Alright, one more 3rd grade post to go, I will show some of the work we did for a block on time.
But it won't be my very next post, cause that is going to have to be the giveaway post...

Oh my, I am up so past my bedtime. Goodnight! (Good morning... Good day to all!)


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