Family Fun: Projects and Activities While Social Distancing

With the "social distancing" and cancellation of our extra-curricular activities we are having a lot of fun family time.  Hubby helped the kids work on their staves for Cub Scouts.  They did some hammering and practiced their wood burning skills. 

 Also lots of lego building and general paper crafting is happening, though I haven't taken any pictures of those things. Brother M made a lego "vending machine" that dispenses their gummy vitamins.  Brother S copied a lego rocket from the space book he has been reading aloud.  I printed out this lovely free coloring book from Taproot magazine which we have all enjoyed (good farm family illustrations). They especially liked making the little paper dollhouse.

We have also had some nice virtual visits with family, friends, and cousins.

 Grandma S and Grandpa J taught a little family history class for all the cousins. A and M's piano and guitar lessons are being taught virtually as well.

 We have been doing a lot of baking and cooking practice. Big sister A made dinner by herself last night while I was working outside. She made spaghetti, broccoli, and a pumpkin pie.  Earlier in the week she made chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.  Brother M and I tried to make a recipe for cream puffs with chocolate filling, though they came out a bit flatter than the picture... still delicious. All of the kids have been practicing using the bread maker.  Big sister A used it to make us pizza from scratch one night for dinner with jello for dessert and Brother S made their favorite raisin bread.  Brother M also made a delicious peach "coffee cake" which turned out to be more like a peach cobbler.  We loved that one so much that we had to make it again. When kids don't have any pre-made or packaged snacks available they really like looking at cookbooks for fun things to make. 

We have been careful to avoid going to the store. And we can do that with all of our food storage and our gardens!  It has been so wonderful to feel prepared for sheltering in place.   Our neighboring farmer sells us milk. We have fresh eggs and greens, plus all our meals that were bottled from the summer garden.  Hubby went to our local grocery once "to buy cat food" and satisfy his junk food  cravings.  We had a delivery from the feed store yesterday for all our animals. But really, the last time I went to do a big grocery trip was in mid-February up in Amish country.  I usually measure when I need to go grocery shopping again by our apple stores. We are down to half a bushel or less now.  And we just finished off the potatoes that I stored last fall. Soon I will head up Lancaster way again and restock for the next couple months.
Our lettuces are up and I have been adding fresh spring greens from the yard (some people would call them weeds).  Henbit and dead nettle have braved the cold and are everywhere. I don't love having them in my garden, but knowing that so much of my lawn is edible is amazing.  Dandelions, garlic mustard, and violets are coming up pretty well now too. So cheerful and so healthy for eating.

 With the warmer spring weather hubby has been able to play frisbee in the evenings with the kids as well as a new favorite card game, Uno Flip. We have also been doing our fair share of silly imaginative games and challenges - like trying to see whether you can balance a fidgit spinner on various body parts. 

All these fun things that we are doing come after our schoolwork is finished.  I am grateful for the time to be able to get that done consistently every morning. Normally, we skip Fridays because of co-op school, and other fun things come up as well.   I have been especially focused on getting them each through their reading, writing, and arithmetic courses for this year.  We are still on track to finish before the baby comes mid-May! So glad.  Then we can wrap up American History and some science work over the summer.  Big sister A will start doing some BYU Middle School online courses in the Fall. And maybe a preparatory one over the summer. I can't believe she is already old enough for that!

Sew Special: Another Button Lover and some Quick Change Trousers

Finished off another button lovers sweater. Managed to make it come out smaller this time (6-9 month size).  Used some soft cotton yarn and buttons from my stash. 

  And a gnomey hat.  So quick and easy - done in bits of time over the course of a day. Used the same wool as in his baby blanket.

I first saw these quick change trousers on Amanda Soule's blog in 2010!  I wanted to try them so much, but the book was new and the price was high so I never got around to it.  I ran across a picture of them again a few months ago, checked Thrift Books and sure enough found an inexpensive gently used copy of this lovely book.

Since I have almost no clothes for this new little fellow as yet, I started assembly line sewing a bunch of these from fabrics on hand.  I have about 14 pairs in the works (half are 6 month size and half 12 month size).  My babies have all been born too big for newborn size, wear 3 month size for their first two months or so and then spend awhile in the 6-9 month size range.  I figure this new guy will be in these 6 month pants by about August, especially with his big cloth diaper bum. 

 Each pant is completely reversible which is great for durability and style changes. Only drawback is that making one pair takes two pairs worth of fabric and time. The legs can be rolled down as the baby grows, which is why I skipped the 9 month size and went right to the 12 months.

 Making do with fabrics that I already have in my stash, lots of greens and browns so far.

Farm Fresh: Bye Big Trees. Hello Playground!

Lots more progress on clearing the land for our future berry patch. My sister Becky published an excellent blog article this week on how many fruit bushes/trees you need to feed an average person/family a years supply of fruit.  We are trying to be as self reliant as possible so it is interesting to compare what we have so far and what we still need.  We have enough apple, peach, and pear trees (not to mention apricot, plum, fig, and elderberries) in our little orchard to cover those, but we are way behind on our berry needs. We only have 6 blueberry bushes and we need at least 12.  We don't have any blackberry or raspberry bushes so far. That is what I hope to plant in this new stretch of ground -- more blueberry bushes and 20 to 30 thornless blackberry bushes.  We had just ONE at our old house and it was great, grew huge berries and was pretty easy to care for. 

Watching the pros cut down three big trees was very exciting. We all sat in wrapt attention for an hour or so. 

  This part of the yard is our best sun for growing things as it is a south facing slope.

 We only had these three cut this year because we knew it would make a huge mess! And it will take awhile to chainsaw it into wood stove size pieces and chip up all the branches.

 Turns out it also made a really fun playground.  The kids were pretending that each tree was a ship that wrecked on a deserted island, among many other imaginary adventures.

 This big old oak tree has been dead for 2 years now.  It really needed to be cut down.  A few of its branches fell every time we had a windy storm. It was the most fun to watch hit the ground because the rotten wood of the branches looked like they were exploding!

 They cut the tree high up on the stump because of the the two trunks coming out of it. They were going to cut it down lower, but the kids begged us to wait so that they could climb on it.

 Brother S sketched some trees

The weather was unseasonably warm that day.  Temperatures went up to 80 degrees for the high.  That called for a picnic lunch at our new "playground".  

On Saturday, Hubby spent the day chainsawing things into more manageable pieces.  

 I will move the smallish branches to our chipper pile and he will use the backhoe plus thumb attachment to carry logs to the woodpile.

 At some point I would like to measure how many square feet of growing space that we will have gained by the time we are done clearing this new berry patch. I can't let myself get too excited yet though. There are several more trees that will need to be cut and cleared next year before this area is ready to plant. One is a big dead hickory tree and another is an invasive tree of heaven that was allowed to grow huge and spreads 300,000 seeds (see linked article) each year, creating invasive seedlings of itself all over the yard.  I cannot wait to get rid of that problem... Lots of progress for now though.

Rainbows for St. Patty's Day

 Big sister A set up a hair salon in the kids' bathroom on St Patrick's day. Hair chalk was her main tool.  Everyone wanted rainbows or greens to avoid being pinched. 

Little leprechauns

Farm Fresh: Almost Spring!

Our Silver Appleyard ducklings arrived March 4th.  They are doing great under big sister A's care.

 March 10th my two experienced mama buns each had 10 kits.  Neither of the two new (choc/choc) ladies had any! Quite frustrating, but we will try again in a few weeks.

 The "White Way of Delight" (ornamental pear trees lining our driveway) are just about to blossom.

 And all the wild daffodils that I keep moving from various parts of the yard to encircle the base of the trees are coming up nicely.  Maybe some day I will spend the money to actually buy some other kinds of bulbs to mix in.

 I planted out the chervil and Johnny Jump Ups this week.  Only light frost (about 32 F) in the next 10 day's weather forecast and they are both semi frost tolerant.

 Transplanted most of the rhubarb into large pots and put them outside.

 The jostaberry cuttings are starting to take off.

 Perennial herbs are coming back. Yarrow, sage, lemon balm, tansy, chives, rhubarb, and the lettuces I planted in the fall are all coming up strong. Catmint, mullein, bee balm, and valerian are all growing well two.  I even spied some feverfew near the barn.  Thank goodness for perennials! Now to clean up their beds and get some annuals in place before the new baby comes.

 Another thing that would be great to have more of - there's nothing like hellebores in the early spring.

 And here I am wearing my latest completed knitting project. It was not meant to be a maternity sweater, but it kinda fits for now.

 The buttons are a funny story.  I bought a bulk pack from Amazon of these brown coconut ones years ago. I have used them on some other sweaters and still have plenty. The brown just didn't look right with this one.  And in keeping with my "Buy nothing. Use what you have." mantra I decided to try painting them to match the sweater.  I tried several different types of "paint" that we had around the house and then put them in a pillowcase to give them the washer/dryer test.  Most of the samples could not stand up to the washer.  The winner? Nail polish. It showed no signs of coming off, so that is what I ended up using on all the buttons.

 This is the first hooded sweater that I have knit for myself.  The kids have a couple already.  I had to meld two patterns together to get this the way that I wanted it to look. The dark green yarn is cashmere and the whole thing is very soft. I have been wearing it a lot lately. I made the sleeves extra long too.  Usually the sleeves of sweaters are a bit short on me.

 And a good belly shot because I know my mom wants to see it:

 I also put my sewing know-how to work fixing these fleece row covers for the garden.  Last year I put them up outside the garden fence to protect some flowers. The cats love hiding under them. Normally that is not too big of an issue, but since they were outside the fence the dogs thought that it was a game and tried to go after the cats while they were in there. Not cool. They cost about 25$ each and I have 4 of them.

 I took the metal hoops out and started experimenting with various patches.  I had some very lightweight fusible interfacing and it worked well and was the easiest to insert (no sewing required, just ironing).  All patched up now.

Family Fun: St Patty's Day Playdate, and Outdoor Fun

Missed updating the blog last week because I was preparing to teach a class for youth night on "foraging".  We had several fun playdates over the last couple weeks.  Good thing since we won't be having any for the foreseeable future! For one of them our friends brought all the fancy trimmings to decorate shamrock cookies.

The girls kept the youngest entertained with taking pictures of themselves while his mama and I filled the back of her car with 5 gallon buckets of rabbit manure for her new garden.

 On Saturday we tried to have a campfire with some friends.  We cooked the hot dogs and then it started raining during the s'mores.  We came inside and turned off the lights to do the "spooky stories" that my kiddos had written.

Big sister A made a little museum exhibit in her room by dressing up her dolls and labeling the various historical stations. It was very cleverly done with what she had on hand. 

 I especially like this one from 1914 since she drew the NYC back drops.

 We attended an Eagle Court of Honor for a young man that hubby helped when he was a cub scout.

 Brother M bought a new drone with his earnings. He wanted one that had a video camera and card, but that didn't require a smart phone.  This one has its own screen.

  He has been practicing with our old inexpensive one for awhile so he has pretty good flying skills.  They love watching the videos of themselves doing things in the yard.  I like the high overhead views of the farm-- reminds me of Justin Rhodes' videos.

Today we had church at home. I am grateful that hubby has the priesthood and could bless and pass the sacrament to us at home.  The kids gave talks. We read some of our "Come Follow Me" lessons for Sunday School, watched "Book of Mormon" videos, and sang some songs that the primary chorister sent out for us to practice. 

 One exciting part was that big sister A can accompany us on the piano now.  It's hard to believe she has only been taking piano lessons for 7 months.  She really enjoys it and practices without being reminded. (Anytime she passes by the piano she plays something). She has already finished the advanced beginner book 1 series.  Her teacher is wonderful too.  She will be continuing her lessons via skype for the next couple weeks as will brother M for guitar.

Things that were not photographed: Big sister A went to the temple to do proxy baptisms on her first youth temple trip last Saturday.  Hubby went with her and drove a bunch of the other kids in the van.  Their session started at 8am so they left the house a little before 5am.

We also had a playdate with some friends who have big fields and a creek with cattails.  My kiddos had their first experience pulling out cattail fluff and making "snow".  All the usual swimming,  music, and co-op school lessons as well as regular school work happened too. Big sister A is doing French classes with the free Rosetta Stone software available from the library. The Relief Society presidency came over for a few hours to help me transplant tomatoes from plug trays to 4 inch pots. They will be given out on Mother's Day to the ladies at church.  We went to the chiropractor. Hubby cut down some more small trees in our future blackberry patch.  Brother M had a den meeting and big sister A toured another scout troop that they might join when she bridges to Boy Scouts. I finally got my lab papers sorted out with the HC midwives and had my second glucose tolerance test -- no gestational diabetes.  But after the mess with the lab slips, non responsive phone service (for 5 hours!), record keeping debacle, poorly functioning admin staff, and long wait times, I decided that they are stressing me out too much and I am going back to my original midwifery care providers.  They are wonderful, familiar, well organized,  and not that much farther away.