Yarn Along

Advent is soon upon us, and I'm in high preparation mode.  I'm so excited about this Christmas I feel most days like I could explode.

I'm reading through "The Greatest Gift" which is Ann Voskamp's new book.  We plan to go through that as a family, and put an ornament on a "tree" everyday for our "Jesse Tree" project.  This last week I just got some red card stock for backing the ornaments, and I'm planning on cutting out these ornament print outs that came with the book, and make little loops with which to hang the ornaments using the spool of red and white baker's twine.

The book seems very deep, which I like, but on the other hand, I'm worried my younger kids won't latch onto the readings.  In any case, we'll do the Bible readings each day of Advent, which they can all understand, and then do the reading from the book, which some of us can understand, and then we'll hang an ornament on the Jesse Tree, which all the kids should enjoy.

Our Jesse Tree this year is just a bunch of apple branches that I saved from pruning months ago, and I plan to put them in a large red vase, and we'll just hang the ornaments on the bare sticks.  The idea of a Jesse Tree is to tell a story (usually Old Testament) each day of Advent that leads to the purpose of Jesus' coming.  It answers many of the "why" questions by the time we reach the celebration.

This will be our first Jesse Tree, and I'm very excited about it.

I have lots of knitting going on, but what I chose to show was a little bunny cardigan that still needs sleeves and a hood (with little holes to make room for bunny ears.)  I also have to remember to hunt down some little buttons for this little bunny cardigan...and the 2 others that need to be made before Christmas.

I'm sure I'm not the only one finishing up some Christmas knitting during the Yarn Along today!  I'm linking up with Ginny's site, which hosts the fun Yarn Along, where various blogs talk about what they are knitting and reading this week.  Enjoy!

Acorns Part 2

Some of you may remember my post about David's acorns.  David collected hundreds of acorns, we did the float test with them to see which ones were viable, and then we packed them in Ziploc bags with wet wood chips that we normally use for chicken bedding, and they took up a whole shelf in the fridge.

A whole shelf, people.  My grocery trips since then have revolved completely around how much space we had...which wasn't much.

It was supposed to take a bit over a month for them to germinate, and so we began checking them about 2 weeks ago by just opening a bag or two and checking the ones on the top.  They all looked the same as how we left them, and I was beginning to worry that we'd have to scrap this project and break David's heart.

Then we started to see some broken shells.

The acorns were starting to break, showing a white root looking for some room.

I had talked with Knut's aunt who is a master gardener about David's project, and my worry about spending a lot on plastic pots, or finding ones that were deep enough for an oak tree taproot.  She recommended that I just get a couple packs of paper cups.  They're cheap, and they'll work at least for this stage of the project.  She also told me which nursery to get the soil we'd need, and I picked that up right away before they closed for the season.

The soil was basically frozen in the garage, and David and I together hauled it into the kitchen and picked at it to fill the cups.  By then all the kids wanted to be involved, and David started giving people jobs.  Silje was a huge help with a good attitude, but Elias was a bit whiney, and David tried to get him the most fun jobs that he could.  He wanted so badly for everyone to enjoy themselves, and I thought that was sweet.

We brought out all 4 bags, and some looked better than others.

Some had this white fuzz around the acorns and a bad smell.  Was it frost or mold or what?  I couldn't really tell but we threw those away.  I couldn't bare throwing out the whole bag when that happened, but we threw out big chunks of bags.

Actually, after we got rid of chunks, we went through one bag that seemed to have no issues whatsoever.  It was beautiful.  We dumped the whole bag into my salad spinner, and we started looking at each acorn one by one to see if the tip had cracked yet.  Through our research, people said the root didn't have to be protruding out in order to move to phase 2 of planting in soil, the acorn just needed to be cracked open so the root could get access to nutrients.

Silje ran out and got all of our gardening trays that we keep in the summer kitchen from when we buy plants at nurseries.  For about an hour, we had quite a crew working on filling up cups, picking at the cold soil in the bag, checking acorns, planting, setting in trays.  

Then the interest dwindled.  My kitchen was a mess with soil and wood chips all over the floor, and old, wet Ziplocs and cup bags were piled up.  It was a crazy mess.  I was so stressed out.

Silje had to get to piano lessons, and so we paused.  When we got back, David wanted to go play and come back to the acorns later.  I told him he could play, or work on acorns.  But we're not leaving this mess out all day for him to go back to as he pleased.  I told him maybe we could just finish the one really good bag, and work on the other bags on a different day.  He thought that was a good idea.

By then I was working on supper and couldn't help, the little kids had lost interest, and Silje was lost in a book.  David kept plugging away: sorting acorns, planting them, picking at some more soil.  He must have worked an additional 1 1/2 hours on his own in the kitchen.  

I took lots of pictures of them for him, as he wanted to have lots of pictures for his 4H presentation at the county fair next year.  

Like before, I thought that only 50 or less acorns would survive the float test, and hundreds ended up passing.  So we tried to germinate hundreds.  Of that, we went through the best bag, and got 126 germinated acorns planted.  (We put the ones that hadn't germinated back in the fridge to give them a bit more time.)  There were lots more germinated in other bags but we just ran out of time and needed our kitchen back for eating.

From what we're reading, oak trees like to grow where it's cold.  They like to germinate in the fridge around 40 degrees (F) and they like to grow in pots where it's nice and cool but not frozen.  I picked our front entry way for this purpose for a few reasons.  First, we have a really drafty window in there, so it will be nice and cool right there over winter.  Second, there's lots of sunlight there.  Third, it has a doorway, so I can put up a baby gate and keep the 2 little girls out of there.

So we set all the trays in the front entry way, and gave them a nice cold drink. 

This is about 1/4 of the acorns, people.  We still have 3 more bags to go through.  We might be able to fit about 150 more cups in this entryway, but not more.  Not to mention we use our front entryway a lot in the winter.  Just last night I had some friends over after the kids went to bed, and they walked in and nearly tripped over all the cups of acorns.  

I could say no.  I could say it's too much for the family to deal with.  It's just I normally say no.  That's my go-to answer.  This time I wanted to say yes.  This time I wanted one of my kids to dream up something big, and just do it without anyone saying it's too hard, or too messy, or for when they are older.

So we're growing hundreds of oak trees.  We've been talking a lot about oak trees.  David is learning so much.  I can't always say yes.  But this time I did.  There are moments I regret that, but those are completely overshadowed by those moments when I'm thinking, "this is so cool!"

I'm really, really hoping these little acorns make it to a Part 3.

Wildlife

We've had this habit that we'll miss this coming winter.  I cook in the kitchen, I can set Ingrid by the door, and open up it up so only the glass/screen door is between Ingrid and the little kittens.  When she is there, they come running over, and they stare at each other and take turns hitting the glass, and I get a chance to cook without a baby underfoot.  They can entertain each other for quite some time.

The kittens are getting bigger, and steal into the garage any time they can.  Add to them the 5 adult cats, and there's beginning to be a few underfoot.  When we got them, we made the house's old summer kitchen into a cat house where they could hunt for mice near the house.  After a few weeks of seeing at least one of them at all times munching on mice guts (ew!) they seem to have found and eaten all of the mice near the house and have started to get curious about other things.  This hasn't been a big problem, but Knut gets annoyed at them from time to time being underfoot.  They've started venturing out to the grain bins to hunt, which is good because there's mice galore for them out there.

We've also decided to move 3 of the adult cats from the summer kitchen to the barn to live.  Silje set up a little bed for them, and their food and water dishes.  She said they were so excited to be down there, they couldn't even stay in her arms long.  We'll have them clean that place out next, and have less cats roaming around the house.  This is so much better than 2 years ago when I found where mice had nested little pellets of poison in the kids' toy boxes in the house.  With our grain bins near the house, we attract mice from miles around, and previously always controlled them with poison, as traps were never enough.  When the mice brought the poison in the house, though...I hit the roof in frustration.  That's when the cat discussion started, and at this point, I don't regret it at all.

They are quite social, which I like.  Knut and I are not cat people...at all.  For me, I've never met a cat that liked me before, and all of these besides 1 likes me, so I'm feeling pretty good.  They all live outside or in the out buildings, but they come running for some attention when we go outside.  That bugs Knut.  It delights each of the kids, and they each have their favorites.  We just need one to wiggle into his heart.

Silje and I have also started plotting out our big vegetable garden move for next year.  Knut wanted us to plot out the French style beds, that will suit our desire to try out companion gardening next year.  In fact, I've been talking about the idea of planting in patches as weed control for years, but it wasn't until I got a book on companion gardening that Knut realized it was actually a decent method.

We've been talking about doing this for awhile, and we don't have much time left before the snow begins to fly.  This autumn, the plan is for Silje and I to plot it out with sticks and string, and Knut will fill up those areas with compost for the winter.  This coming spring, Knut will till up the beds, and we'll have to fence them off somehow from the chickens.  We're planning 6 beds right now: 5 vegetable beds and 1 just cutting-flower bed, though Knut is trying to convince me to do 5 vegetable beds and 3 cutting flower bed.  I think he just really hates mowing.

Right now the plan is for the beds to be 4 feet wide, 10 feet long, and 3 feet in between each bed as a walkway.  In the future, we may get "hoops" (which are like mini greenhouse-like contraptions) to extend our growing season into the colder months, which is another benefit of this style of gardening.

I've been pleasantly surprised with our addition of Missy and the cats to our yard this year, that all the animals get along so nicely.  With our 9 chickens, a handful of them are laying and we've been gathering 4 eggs a day finally.  Our capacity is really around 20 chickens, and that produces more than enough for our family, and enough to sell to pay for the feed, making our eggs virtually free.

We decided to wait to add more chickens until after the New Year.  These 2 birds above were Silje's show chickens this last year at the county fair, and she got a red ribbon because they were not fully mature by fair time.  So this next year we'll have to buy our chicks in the winter and raise them in the old basement until it's warm enough for them to go outside.  We won't have a lot of room for that, but we'll get enough to round out our flock to the right number.  When I look back this year, to how many chickens we've lost to predators, it's crazy.  We lost our flock that was in the teens all in one fateful night, and then we bought 20 new chicks and started growing them, and that number went down to 7 due to predator attacks.  So we've lost close to 30 chickens.  Then a friend gave us 2 of her hens that she had as overflow, which brought us back up to 9.

Do you know how many chickens we've lost to predators since we got Missy, our Great Pyrenees?

Zero.

That's a lovely number to write.  I could write pages and pages on all the cool things that dog does.  I told Knut that had we been the ones to name her, we would have named her "Nanny" from Peter Pan, because she keeps a close eye on all things outside: chickens, cats, kids.

I once told Elias and Solveig to stay away from the faucet outside because it was too cold to play in the water.  After I told them the second time, Missy just walked over and blocked their path to the faucet, and she stayed there until they came inside.  She doesn't nip or bite anything.  She just uses her hugeness to block paths she thinks are wrong, and she does it so instinctively, it's crazy.

Then there's all the noises at the grain bins that are typical for harvest.  The grain dryer was running hard, and was noisy.  I'd walk back there sometimes to bring Knut his lunch, but Missy didn't like me walking into that area as she felt it was too dangerous for me, so she kept trying to herd me back to the house by gently standing in front of me and leaning in the direction she thought I should go.  I kept having to go around her.  

She doesn't bug the cats at all, either.  They'll come up and try to swat her nose.  She just sits down cooly as if to say, "did I just feel a breeze?"  I love it.

Yarn Along

Things are moving along quickly in my fair isle scarf, which I'm keeping slightly ambiguous for now.  I'm really enjoying knitting this as I have my patterned memorized, and it's fun to just speed through a scarf.

The kids and I are still going through the Harriet Tubman biography, Courage to Run.  I remember reading a biography on her when I was a kid, and barely able to put it down for 3 days.  It was one of those books that you curled up with and couldn't do anything else until it was done, and I could give a big sigh of relief.  After 2 biographies in a row for the kids, I think we may pause and read some Narnia after this.  We've covered a biography from the holocaust, and now from the depths of slavery.  I think at least I'm in need of a little less real world, and a little more fantasy for our next read aloud, although the kids have really been on the edge of their seats with our reading of these biographies so I have no regrets.

It's been awhile since we've read "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe."  I'm sure they're ready for the next one.

Also, as a quick public service announcement for those of you who follow my knitting patterns, the blog at "In the Loop" yarn store in Plainville, MA is featuring my Clarity Cardigan today.  For today, and only today, my Clarity Cardigan design will be 50% off when you use the code found on their blog.  I was so excited to be asked to be a part of their "30 days of Indy" project where they feature a different independent knitting designer each day of November.

I'm linking up with Ginny today, in her weekly Yarn Along.  Knitting and reading are 2 of my favorite things, and I only wish I was able to do them at the same time.

I'm Blessed

It's turning cold in a hurry.  I'm not sure if we're really prepared to settle in for the winter, but we're getting there.  Knut got the roses cut and covered, but we haven't set up next year's new vegetable gardens yet.  I was supposed to have those marked up for compost.  Maybe I'll get to that today.

Around our house people are loosing their voices.  We're taking turns with laryngitis, and fortunately it's been limited to that.  No bad coughs, no fevers.  Just dry throat.  My voice was almost completely gone this morning, and surprisingly coffee didn't help much, so I suppose I'll be the silent one next.  Unfortunately, my kids don't seem overly upset about that.

Elias had his party with 3 of his cousins over.  He's getting so tall.  He's been asking to use tape pretty much 15 times a day for the last few weeks, and it was then when my mom asked what he wanted for his birthday.  I told her, "Just get him some rolls of Scotch tape, and he'll be a happy camper."  She laughed at that.  When we got their package in the mail, among some Legos and other goodies, there were 2 large rolls of Scotch tape.

So pretty much everything in our house has tape on it right now, and Elias is pleased.  Tape was a rope ladder, allowing his Lone Ranger Lego guys to climb from the floor to the top of the table.  Tape  also tied together some bad guy Legos, securing a bank.  We're thankful for that.  Elias likes his tape.

I'm so thankful for so many things right now.  I'm thankful for our land that produced so much goodness stored away for the winter.  I'm so thankful to have Knut home in the evenings, to help put the kids to bed.  I'm so thankful our dog Missy is feeling better and doesn't have to be in forced rest anymore.  I love looking outside and see her constantly surveying the horizon for any threat.

I'm so thankful for date nights, catching up, friendships with other moms that go so deep.  You hear about these mommy-wars and how vicious we moms can be to each other.  I found some friends who love deeply and give selflessly, and they are such a blessing to me.

I'm thankful for big dreams and baby giggles.  I'm thankful for a knitting project that is finally beyond the first 2 inches, and the season where our fireplace is once again glowing around the clock.

How has God blessed you this last week?

Post-Harvest Hangover

We're in the thick of it here.  We made it through harvest.  It's now wood cutting season.  After harvest is done, and Knut has made it through weeks of little social interaction he's eager to get out and do things and be with people.  We're going to a concert on Sunday.  Well, in his mind we are.  We still haven't found a sitter, and as most of our sitters will be at the concert as well, I have no idea how that will work.

We're going to town nearly every day.  I hate that.  I hate running to things here and there.  I'm not sure what to do about it.  We sat down to supper the other night, and I mentioned to Knut and the kids how all this running around is effecting our ability to do well here at home, and I thought we should cut back in the activity department.  So after Christmas I'll hopefully have Wednesdays back home at least.  Whoever put the "home" in "homeschool" was obviously being optimistic.

Elias turns 5 this week.  I can't seem to get over that.  Elias is our little Eeyore.  He was our preemie baby, slow to reach milestones, difficult to understand at times, and stuck between the big kids and the little kids.  He follows the well spoken oldest sister, and the super-athletic older brother.

He's been in need of time with Knut a lot lately.  I think he rode with him during harvest more than any other kid.  His heart just ached for time with Daddy.

We're going a little crazy for his birthday.  Not how you might think.  We don't do large, elaborate parties, except maybe for their first birthday.  I like to do a big party for the first birthday often because only the first baby gets a baby shower and I really want a celebration with the extended family for the life God gave.  So I delay the celebration to the 1st birthday, and it's usually pretty fun.  I didn't do that with Solveig's 1st birthday, though, because the whole family had the stomach flu.  We did it in spirit, though.  ;)

In going crazy for Elias' birthday, we're having a simple party with his 3 local cousins coming over.  We'll have cake and balloons.  The big surprise is Knut is bike shopping for him.  Extra care is being taken because the time has come for Elias to start learning how to ride bike, and he's so easily discouraged by comparison to his older brother who can do nearly any physical challenge.  Knut is researching buying a really nice, easy to ride bike.  One that will make bike riding simple and satisfying.

Unfortunately, the bike may not come in time for his birthday.  I'm afraid the delay will make him feel like he was forgotten.  So Knut is pausing his much needed wood cutting time this weekend to take Elias to the bike shop and show him which bike is coming.  They're going out just the 2 of them.  It melts me sometimes watching Knut be a dad.  He takes such care with their hearts.

David is making a big batch of paper airplanes to give Elias.  So far he's folded 17.  Elias will be so excited about that.  Silje made some paintings where you scratch off the paint to reveal a crayon picture underneath.

It's been busy.  I'm trying not to be consumed by it.  I think it's just the post-harvest hangover.  We'll catch up to normal life soon, I think.

Yarn Along

I'm still on the path to destruction, ripping out inches of designs in various projects.  Yesterday I cast on for this scarf design, and hopefully it will be my ticket out of this funk.  So far, so good.

The kids and I just started a biography of Harriet Tubman.  They are really, really into biographies no and that has been fun.  We've totally been reading our school books out of order.  Oops.  ;)

I'm also reading Ministry of Motherhood which has been touching my heart deeply.  Sally's discussion on inspiring your kids has really made a difference on how I speak to my kids and has been good for both their hearts and mine.

I'm linking up with Ginny, who I hope is resting as much as she can.  I have to ask you to squeal with me at her newborn post yesterday.  The striped booties her son is wearing in one of the photographs?  They were my gift to her.  I was so excited she posted a picture of him in them for me.

Getting the Ball Rolling Again

This internet break screwed me up.  I usually am not at any loss as to what to write.  I like being in the habit of writing.  The habit makes the words come easier, but starting to write is actually quite difficult.

My brother came for a visit from California this last weekend.  The guys finished harvest on Saturday.  Knut is able to cut wood today for us to fuel our house for the winter.  School is moving along, activities overwhelm, knitting is frustrating.  I still feel so lost in regards to design.  I keep moving from project to project, and not able to gain some traction.  I've been taking small breaks when I've reached a point of utter frustration and knitting up another clothing item for the girls' bunny dolls they'll get for Christmas.  It was helping for awhile, but now that's frustrating me too.

Our oven/stove was fixed, and I can't tell you how much easier life is with it!  Can we all give thanks today for an easy way to cook food?  We are so blessed.

I'm still doing lots of Advent preparations, and it dawned on me that it will be starting in about 2 weeks.  Can that be right?  I've been looking for means to turn my kids' hearts towards the things of God most especially during this season.  We'll certainly be going through the catalog from "Food for the Hungry" (button for this in the right margin of this blog).  My mom works there, and as picky as Knut and I are in our giving of making sure that the organization is dedicated to preserving the dignity of the poor, and leaving communities intact and working intentionally towards independent communities, not long term dependent communities.  I just love this organization.

I also happened upon a blog of an old friend from the little town where we live.  She felt God's calling on her life to work with orphans in Haiti, and that's where she lives.  She's just living by faith day by day, and making a HUGE impact.  I respect her work so deeply.  You can find her blog about her work at the orphanage here.  In fact, she has an Amazon wish list of items the orphanage could use.  You can purchase a gift there, and it is sent to her.

We're looking at what we want to give the orphanage for Christmas.  Might I suggest you either visit her wish list or her website and make a donation?  What a blessing of encouragement we could be to her!

I had a long talk with Silje yesterday as the zipper pull on her warm coat got smushed, and we also tried on some of our winter gear from last year to see if there were snow pants and snow boots to fit everyone.  So as we headed into town to pick up a few items, she said we needed to pick up a new coat for her because the zipper was broken on hers.  Also, although she could still fit into her snow boots from last year, David is getting a new pair, therefore she thought she should get a new pair too.

So I told her I was going to look at her zipper more closely and see if I can't fix it before we just go buy a new coat, and we weren't going to buy boots just because.  She had boots that worked just fine.  If she grew out of them, I'd buy her new (used) ones.  Until then, we'd make do with what we had.

She then asked me if we were poor.

My child who lacks for nothing, who sits by the warm fire with book after book, with a full tummy, innocently asks what it means to be poor.  That is something we're studying now as a family.  It's a painful, painful process to lift the curtain of the charmed life we lead to the other parts of the world that contain unspeakable pain. I feel like I'm robbing them of innocence, but just the same I'm certain it is something that needs to be done.  I want deep down in their souls to know that this world is not just for us.  I want their hearts to be turned towards the work of God.  That cannot be if they're hearts are so full of themselves.

Today is chess club, library day, and choir practice.  Yesterday was piano lessons and Thursday we'll have our homeschool co-op.  As the days full of us and things for us and our amusement, and our betterment, Satan would love nothing more than to distract us from our purpose.  It is a fight, an uphill battle.

I'm not sure how to sign off a post like this.  I just needed to write to get the ball rolling again.  We're so blessed to have internet back again.

Preparation

It looks like the bulk of harvest is nearly over.  In fact, it could be done at the end of this week, or maybe early next week.  We'll see.  It'll be nice to have Knut home around 7 or 8 at night instead of 11 or midnight.  I've gotten a lot of knitting done when I finally get to sit on the couch when the kids get to sleep.  I'm so behind on so many other things.  Oddly, I'm not bothered by that.  I feel like each day I accomplish what needs to get done, and try to be content with that, even if what was achieved wasn't perfection.  Rest is good too.

Most especially,  I don't want to miss this.

We've moved into a season of thankfulness.  I've been doing a lot of thinking about Christmas this year, as it will be different.  This is our year to go down to Arizona with my parents, but after our terrible, awful, no good road trip down their last Spring with 2 kids who were unbelievably carsick no matter what we tried, I told my parents we just couldn't go.  Thankfully, they were understanding and decided to come to us this year.

So this will be brand new.  What do I want Christmas at our house to look like?  Toy catalogs have started trickling in the mail, and after the kids devoured the first 2 and could talk of nothing else, I finally started throwing them away. It's so hard even for me...especially the ones from homeschool companies with super-educational, brain stimulating toys that my kids would play with for hours.  I could so easily go nuts in there.

I've been asking myself a lot lately: at what point do we say enough?  At what point do we say "We don't need anymore stuff."  What are we teaching our kids about money and priorities and love and the poor during this season of celebration?  Because money and the poor and children and putting people first were all pretty important to Jesus.  At what point do we consider what sort of life God has called us to live?  And most of all, is there any way to make Christmas about Christ's birth, and not about stuff?  Not so the kids have the legalistic righteousness, or deprived attitude, but so they really get it.  Really, really understand what this is all about.  Can we not just breathe Jesus into the season?

We know Jesus is enough for us adults, but assume he's not enough for the kids.  For kids it's all about the presents because they can't understand that other stuff.  I'm starting to believe that is a lie.  Jesus is enough, most especially for kids, because kids get it.  If anyone understands faith or compassion or God, it's kids.  Jesus said so himself.

We started a grateful list.  Akin to the "1000 gifts" book, which prompted a lot of growth in me, we're removing toy catalogs and commercials from our house, and focusing on being thankful for what we DO have.  Whenever any of the kids get whiney during the day for various reason, I have them add things to the list.  "But Mo-om!  I don't wanna... I want to..."  I say, "OK, why don't I have you add 5 things to our list."  They instantly light up and run to the roll of parchment paper hanging from a length of yarn on the nail that usually holds our advent calendar in December.  They love thinking of something to add to the list.

It's a huge distraction, and a reprogramming right in the moment for all of us.  The kids are coming up to me multiple times a day to add things to the list.  We are being kinder to each other.

Then whenever one starts naming things off for me to write, more kids come running from other rooms to add things to the list.  Our paper is unrolling.  Our hearts are starting to shift.

I'm trying to prepare the older kids for the shift I hope for Christmas this year.  Let's focus on giving.  Let's come up with some giving lists, instead of getting lists.  Let's look for ways to bless our neighbors.  Let's find "the least of these" that Jesus talks about and give to them what we would give to baby Jesus.

What better way to start off the season than with a season of thanks?