Outings

Red Clover

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Little Hen picked me a red clover bouquet and slipped it into my knitting basket on our morning walk to the park.   “Weeds” growing wild outside the park made a handsome centerpiece on our dining table.   I love how children find beauty in places we overlook.

Where do your children find unexpected beauty?

Lilac Gardens

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Pictures from our trip to the Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens in Woodland, WA this past weekend with my husband’s mother, sister, and our niece.   If you have never been, we highly recommend the trip – just a short drive North from Portland.

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I can hardly wait until next year, when our yard will be ready to accept plantings – at the festival, we picked out six or seven lilacs we have to put in along the side of the house – some fragrant, some extravagant, some old-fashioned and just lovely in aroma and blossom (my favorite is a variety called Glory).  We’ll be back to buy our plants next spring!

Thrift Store Impulse Buy

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First off, an apology on this  WordPress Theme – it’s having issues, I don’t like it, and will probably be changing it soon.  I’m in the middle of trying to work up a custom header, as well (that’s tougher than I realized!) so things maybe a bit wonky for a few days.

Okay, on to the post –

The children and I were out for coffee this morning with friends, and on the way home, we swung by our favorite thrift store. It was a pretty successful outing – especially considering these goodies only set me back $2.25 in total (the hand-thrown coffee mug is my favorite piece).

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I’d been eyeing this “so-ugly-but-I-am-in-love-with-it” chair for weeks and weeks, as they slowly lowered the price from the original $125 (yikes!) down to $30.  Still a big purchase for me, but we have hardly any furniture in our new home, so I just went for it.

It took quite a bit of maneuvering to get it to fit in the back of my minivan (amazing how little space there is in a huge minivan when it’s full of three carseats, spare clothes/diapers, snack cooler, etc.).  Quite comfy, too, despite it’s more formal shape.   Here’s hoping my husband enjoys crazy, bright (shall we say “loud”?) floral in our living room.

Little treasures, guilty pleasures

A few little luxuries of the past week –

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A thrift store visit yielded a new maple-syrup bottle and copper kettle for the girls’ dolls.

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A stop by Knittin’ Kitten – recycled silk yarn, rick-rack in lovely spring shades, and some trim for new skirts for Firecracker.

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Some stickers for the girls, sent by a friend inside a “congrats on buying your first home” card.

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A rainy-day visit to our friend’s bakery, Saint Cupcake.

Just two, toolin’ around the grocer’s.

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Little Hen went to spend the night with Grandma, and the two younger ones had a great time hanging out together (who knew the grocery store could be so much fun?)

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(A little coffee to keep mama going during an 8 am grocery run.)

Tulip Festival

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Since I am frantically trying to paint the new house  and pack at the old house this week, I’ll leave you with some pictures from last weekend’s trip to the to the Tulip Festival in Woodland, WA.  The tulips are a bit late this year, but the weather was near perfect, and we had a very nice time. (I won’t tell you the ridiculous amount I spent on my tulip, iris, crocus, allium, daffodil, hyacinth and muscari order, but I will be looking forward to their arrival in October!)

Sanibel

My favorite vacation desination – the beautiful sandy beaches of Sanibel, FL.  The shelling is the best in the world, and the water is clear and warm. 

 

We spent our time making a “beach fairy sand castle”, collecting sea shells, watching shorebirds.  The girls also went kite flying with their Grandpa.  

Wishing you a day just as sun-filled and relaxing.

Six Mile Cypress, Part II

More from our day at the Six Mile Cypress Slough.   I love being able to share my interest in the outdoors and birdwatching with the children.  My mother was excited to share her botanical knowledge and interests with us, too.  Not to mention the perfect sunny day spent exploring out of doors! 

The new nature center was a big thrill for the girls – it was really well designed for young children (a rarity in Southern Florida, where children themselves are a rarity, it seems).  We had the place to ourselves, and the volunteers were eager to show the girls around and go through the exhibits with them.

Afterward, we sat out at the various decks and blinds and did a little bird watching. 

TumTum was more content to flirt with the nice ladies volunteering there, and then occupy himself with his toes for a while.

I hope your day was spent enjoying family and sharing your passions with them, too!

Six Mile Cypress

The weather was a little cool for another trip to the beach, so instead we went for a walk in this gorgeous preserve.

The entire walk through the slough is on a boardwalk, since the cypress preserve is flooded most of the year.   

 Last year we saw lots of alligators and a family of otters playing right in front of us.  No such luck this year, but we saw lots of birds (yay!), including green herons (below), white ibis, palm warblers, Carolina wrens, anhingas, great blue herons, great egrets.  Oh, yeah, and some non-avian wildlife - lizards, various turtles, butterflies, beetles.  My mom is a Master Gardener and she’s a plant buff the way I’m a bird brain, so she was able to teach us a lot about the bromeliads, ferns, cypress, and other plants in the slough, too.

The Preserve has added a new nature center since last year, and I will write a bit about that tomrorow.

Prairie girls hit the beach

 

This is why I love Southern Florida  – beautiful 80 degree days (in January!!) spent relaxing on the beach.  It was a windy day, but the sun was shining, and the girls were very busy searching for shells, splashing in the shallows, and building fairy castles in the sand. 

Tum Tum really enjoyed himself, too.  After a brief attempt at eating the sand, he settled for just squishing his fingers and toes in it.   A pair of osprey kept circling overhead (their nest post was directly behind us), and he’d squeal with delight when they flew over.

This weekend we’re driving the half an hour to Sanibel – with the best shelling in the world, but yesterday’s excursion to Bowditch Beach was a wonderful beginning to the sun-n-sand season.

 

Ahhh, bliss…

Firecracker’s Snow Day

Pictures from earlier in the week, when it was a little warmer and less blustery, and Firecracker thought she might like to go play out in the snow.  She quickly thought better of it, and came in to warm up on the sofa, looking at some Dr. Seuss books with her sister and enjoying the snow from the window. 

We are currently pretty much snowed-in and the latest news is that our flight out to my folks’ tomorrow may be canceled as the snowstorm turns into an icestorm.  So, since I have some time on my hands, I think may have a second post up later today. 

Hope you are keeping warm and safe in the Iowa winter that has settled over Oregon!

Creamy Polenta Dinner

We finished this book, but the girls’ interest in all things relating to “life on the prairie” has yet to wane.  Firecracker had been asking all through the book, “What does salt pork taste like?”, so when we were in the area, we decided to visit the butcher at our local New Seasons to find some.

He didn’t exactly have salt pork, but recommended some locally made bacon that was very salty, not sweet, and contained no nitrites or dyes.  He said it tasted very different from packaged bacon – much more like salt pork.  We ended up buying the bacon ends, because they were $2/lb less expensive, and for our needs, they would work perfectly.  So, $2 later, we left the store with our “salt pork” and headed home.

Now, the Ingalls family also ate a LOT of cornmeal, so we did a little recipe search to find a cornmeal dish we would all want to eat.  We settled on creamy polenta.  I know it isn’t exactly what they would have eaten, because it had cheese, and was served with a tomato and bell pepper sauce, but it looked good to the three of us.  I wasn’t about to spend an hour and a half making a dish of which the girls wouldn’t eat more than one or two bites!

To make this dinner you will need:

1 lb organic, no nitrite local bacon ends or salt pork, finely chopped

5 large shallots, minced

1 clove garlic, minced (I actually used elephant garlic, because it’s what I had on hand)

3 cups whole milk

7 cups cold water

1 bay leaf

1 cup shredded, hard, aged cheese (I used asiago, because it was on sale cheap!)

one large handful of kale or spinach

1 jar homemade spaghetti sauce

1 roma tomato, chopped

1 roasted red bell pepper, skin removed, and finely chopped

1 avocado sliced right before serving (because I had one on hand, you could add parsley or shredded cheese as a garnish instead, if that’s what you have on hand.)

Directions – First, very finely cube and then fry the bacon ends in the dutch oven.  Drain off and save the fat in the fridge (so good for cooking omelettes or hash browns) .  Set fried bacon off to the side. Add the shallots and garlic to the dish and cook on med. until caramelized.  Remove them, and set next to the bacon.

I used this basic creamy polenta recipe, but substituted 3 cups whole milk for half of the 6 cups of water.  I added the water/milk combo straight to the pot that had cooked the bacon, and therefore omitted the salt, because the bacon was quite salty. 

After the polenta finishes cooking, stir in 1 cup shredded cheese and one big handful of kale (from our garden) cut in a fine chiffonade.  Leave covered, on low heat until ready to serve.

While the polenta is cooking, in a separate pot, heat the sauce, plus tomato, red pepper, cooked shallots/garlic, and half of the bacon.

Serve the polenta with sauce on top, and garnish with more bacon and the sliced avocado.  

We ate half of the polenta for dinner, and the other half was poured into a 9×9 greased baking dish, and tomorrow, when it is set up after a night in the fridge, we will cut it up and panfry it for dinner.

Obviously, if you wanted a vegetarian dinner, simply omit the bacon/salt pork, and increase the salt.  You could serve it with cannelini beans for sufficient protein.

The girls enjoyed the dinner, but we talked about how Laura and Mary would have eaten something similar (sans tomato sauce) for breakfast, lunch and dinner most days while they lived on the prairie.   Little Hen said she sure was grateful for the variety in our diet.  She’s so right – we as Americans in the 21st century really are blessed to have such a huge selection of foods to enjoy.

Next on our Little House menu?  A good friend sent us this book for St. Nicholas’ day, so I’m sure there will be many more dishes to try!  The girls would like to make rabbit stew.  Hmm…where to get a rabbit in the middle of Portland without paying an arm and a leg?

Children’s Christmas Market

Our table at the Portland Homeschool Children’s Holiday Market, where our family sold homemade gift tags, peppermint bark, and marshmallows.  It was a wonderful venue for the girls to show off their projects, to raise money for various charities, and to network with other Portland homeschoolers.   

We raised $28 dollars for charity and sold nearly everything we brought (prices were kept low, so all children could participate in the buying as well as the selling –  $1 each, or 3 for $2).  We met lots of other great homeschooling/unschooling families.  The girls came home with tummies full of brownies and a bag full of homecrafted goodies they bought from the other kids at the market – fairy wands, playdoh, postcards, stationery, bean bags, chocolate lollipops. 

Many thanks to Lyla, who put on the event!!  There are future events in the works, and we will definitely attend again!

L’Arche Christmas Tree

Well, now that we’re living back in the city, there is no longer a farm down the road where we cut our tree.  So, instead we drove down the street to the grocery store parking lot, and picked up a little Oregon-grown table-top tree from L’Arche – a wonderful organization that provides community for the developmentally disabled. (Anyone else out there a Henri Nouwen admirer?) 

We always do a table-top tree, because we have few ornaments, it’s easier with little grabby-hands babies around, and we go to Grandma’s house for Christmas, where she has a HUGE glittering tree. 

(I couldn’t get my oldest to stop eating her candy cane long enough to get a good picture!  Also, we had the pleasure of having our little niece with us for the day, in case you’re wondering.  I still only have 3 kids!)

 

Over the next several days, we will put the tree up in stages – the first day it is always left bare in its little stand.  The second day, the lights go up.  The third, the popcorn and cranberries are strung, and the paper chains put up.  The fourth, we decorate – usually the girls have a friend or two over, we listen to Christmas music, drink hot cocoa and eat cookies, decorate the tree, and watch a Charlie Brown Christmas.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to share some of that over the next few days.

We’re in love with OMSI!!

Last week, the girls took a chemistry class for primary-age homeschoolers at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.  We came early, and spent much of our time in the Science Playground (a free-exploration area for those 5 and under.)  We haven’t had such a fun outing since our trip to Hood River.  The girls keep talking about what a great day it was.

I couldn’t go into the chemistry class with them, since Tum Tum wouldn’t keep his safety goggles on (yup, even 5 month-olds have to wear safety goggles in the chemistry workshop!), so we chatted with the other moms outside. 

After the workshop – more exploration, this time downstairs in the physics area with the other homeschool kids.  We were there from 10:30-3pm!  We would have stayed longer, but Little Hen had to get to Girl Scouts.

I think an OMSI membership is something we have to look into.  It would make a great place for us to run around on rainy winter days, and provide a great opportunity for immense amounts of learning.

Prairie Girls at the Farmers Market

The prairie girls make another appearance – at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market.  This time, they went for a more bohemian look, and were determined to sling their babies in some Indian scarves. 

We grow most of our own veggies, especially fall ones (kale, beets, broccoli, chard, rutabega, peas, potatoes, turnips, leeks, lettuce, mustard greens, cauliflower, cabbage, carrots…you get the picture), but we do run to the farmer’s market for fruit and things I haven’t managed to put in the garden.  This trip was for butternut and acorn squash, and the last of the peaches for the year. 

Orchard Country

This past weekend we took our annual day trip to Hood River, OR with my sister.  Reading Grace and Denise and Abby and Blue Yonder had me eagerly anticipating this trip.  The day met and surpassed all my expectations. 

 

Above – Little Hen, Auntie, Firecracker, Me holding Tum Tum

We were blessed with warm, sunny weather, pears to pick, apples to eat, alpacas to pet and fiber to purchase.

 

Now to the pear butter, apple butter, apple sauce, apple pies, spinning, and knitting that are waiting to be created!