I have spent years unwilling to try knitting mittens. I think it had something to do with the anxiety that my usually tranquil Goomie had over the homemade ones getting lost. Maybe that led me to thinking that they were hard to make? I remember her making sure that they were connected with a knitted cord so that at least the pair would stay together. And then there was all the trouble of sticking the corded mittens through coat sleeves.
And yet the kids needed more mittens and lots of folks seem to love this chunky
"Magic Mittens" pattern. They said they were quick and easy... and wowy! They were. I was able to knit at least one hand in the morning during homeschool time and finish off the other in the evening. Side note: I forgot how well knitting and homeschooling go together. As long as I park myself in the den with my knitting everyone else gravitates to that spot and gets their work done. I cannot knit while I am reading things aloud per se, but almost. It works well when I am doing dictation, listening to early readers, and standing by to help with math questions.
Big sister A made a cake for the scout Court of Honor later today. They all continue to improve in their independent cooking and baking projects. All the way down to miss L who "makes herself a quesadilla" (grates the cheese on the tortilla) and then bugs one of the older two to fry it up for her.
This cookbook has surely been worth the money for all the child friendly illustrations and instructions the older two of my kiddos have been able to use it for.
This is the cake that big sister A made today and she also makes homemade mac and cheese from it about once a week for the kids' lunch.
We are up to 700 seed pots going now -- 15 trays of 50. Lots of herbs and flowers. I have a bunch of special seedlings from the pile of seed packets gifted to me by my dear French sisters: so far it includes chervil, carnations, and fancy marigolds. I also seeded 8 trays (400) tomatoes yesterday. About half of those are for the Relief Society. Giving tomato plants for Mother's day was a hit last year and they asked me to do it again this year. It was a pleasure to hear from so many ward members about how well their tomato plants were flourishing.
Asparagus, rhubarb, and artichokes are doing great. Some are ready for transplant to the bigger 4 inch pots. I plant to sell most of those at the plant sale in April.
And an update on our brush clearing; We made a lot of progress this week. I spent about 15+ hours out there hacking away at the brambles and hauling them out. Then hubby spent Saturday cutting down the smallish trees.
I will work on hauling out the rest of the branches and logs this week and then we should be ready to schedule the take down of 3 big trees. I am impatient to get this hillside planted with rows of raspberry bushes, but clearing the big trees will need to be done in phases since hubby can only cut up so many big trees in a single spring. I also plan to prepare (mulch and manure) my rows in the interim. Hubby can rake/mow around the area with the tractor and hopefully those two things will check the weed growth.
The brambles that I cleared were about half wild blackberries and sun-starved/untended forsythia. The other half were invasive plants; mostly Japanese honeysuckle, multiflora roses, tree of heaven, and mile-a-minute. I was thinking to myself as I worked that it was like uncovering The Secret Garden, except that instead of having been left untended for 10 years, our forest area seems to have been abandoned for 30 years. The worst weed to deal with were the tenacious and viciously prickly greenbriar vines. Glad that part is mostly done! Here is my burn pile:
The unillustrated parts of our week: Homeschooling, piano lessons, guitar lessons, swimming lessons, taught another goal setting class (YW this time), made a yummy cashew version of pad thai, and hubby had some long hours on a work project. The kids also sanded, put weights on, painted, and decorated their pinewood derby cars.
No comments:
Post a Comment