Yarn Along - Preparing for Spring

I'm joining with Ginny at Small Things again for the Yarn Along. This week my reading has largely been continuing to read Sanctuaries of Childhood, and as I look forward towards spring I've been consulting with Wynstoes Press's Spring book. We've started doing a story and a few circle verses each morning after breakfast again and I'd like to keep it up as we move into spring so I'm going through my resources.

I'm continuing working on the picky pants that I wrote about last week. I've finished the short rows in them so just a little bit more till I start the gussets and legs. My new project this week has been getting more of my attention. I started working on another Autumn Leaves sweater for Rosebud. This time I'm knitting it in white to go over her Easter Dress and Baptism gown. With Easter being so early this year I'm going to make this one with long sleeves since it's likely to be a bit chilly. I LOVE this pattern. It's absolutely one of my favorites and was even more enjoyable to knit the second time.

Simple Joys-Signs of Spring

What a great joy it was to walk out on my balcony this week and find little leaf buds on the stems of my rose bush!  Even on a cold day like today seeing this is a reminder that spring is in deed on its' way back to us and that soon there will be lots of things growing and springing forth with blossoms out there.  What hope and joy!

What is your simple joy this week?

Ash Wednesday and Lent

I wasn't sure how much we as a family would do this year for Lent.  I didn't have much planned besides Toadstool and I giving something up for the forty days and planning to attend an Ash Wednesday service at our church this evening.  We did have buckwheat pancakes last night for dinner (yum) but beyond that I just hadn't planned much.

However, today, I decided we needed to do a little more.  I struggle however with exactly how to bring Lent to a four year old in a gentle age appropriate way.  I think after consulting some of my resource books and a few blogs I have figured it out.  

We as a family never got around to Candlemas this year.  We were all sick and have a still relatively new baby in the house and it just didn't happen.     So today Toadstool and I melted down our Advent candles from this year and the remnants of last year's Lenten Candle and poured some candles for Lent this year.  I'm not sure where I came across this idea, but it's our third year making a purple  beeswax candle for Lent from our Advent wreath candles and I think it's a lovely idea.  

We made two candles...the larger will be used on our dinning room table. The smaller will sit in a little bowl of sand on our nature table to be used as a  prayer garden for Lent.  I was inspired by this lovely post from Thoughts From the Sheepfold.  Each member of our family has a smooth stone to put in the garden  to represent a joy or prayer concern each day.

For the rest of the nature table we removed everything (we left a few hearts around the tree till after Valentine's Day tomorrow) and put down purple silks.  On top of that we placed our prayer garden, a pile of 4 little rocks, a piece of wood and a small bowl of water.  Explore and Express had some very nice ideas for the Lenten Nature Table here.  

Tomorrow, once we have some clay, we will make a Prayer Pot to also go on the nature table following these instructions, also from Explore and Express.  

I have also decided to tell a story to Toadstool each day during Lent, as we did with the Mother Mary story at Advent.  The Authors of All Year Round recommend  a quiet moment with young children each day.  That is not something my darling Toadstool does well with, however, he will sit a listen to a story and we looked forward to the Mother Mary story so much each day and I felt it really helped to give that season more meaning to Toadstool.  I decided that The Hare from Wynstone Press's Spring book hit the right tone for Lent with its' focus on Christ bringing light and hope to the world and the importance of staying on our course.

Now I just need to find my devotional book for Lent and I think we'll be set for a lovely meaningful period as we look towards Holy Week and Easter.

Checking In

I haven't been to regular on here for a while.  Honestly, I haven't even been keeping up with reading blogs like I used to.  Today I took a few minutes to catch up on a few favorites and it feels like I've been really out of the loop for a while...lots of reading to do.  So fun to see what others have been doing and creating.  So, it seems like it's time for me to just check in quickly, share some big news and maybe  some photos of our spring so far.

We've been busy with lots of school and other commitments.  I've also been doing a good bit creatively, just not always documenting what we've been doing either in writing or in photographs.  I need to get better about that again. I really do miss blogging and the community around it.

W is continuing to grow into quite an amazing little guy and is such a blessing.  Our family is expecting another blessing this fall as W is going to be a big brother.  I had a really rough first trimester (good for getting some knitting done, but not much else) and I am slowly starting to feel more like myself so maybe I'll actually be up to   writing and photographing what we have going on in our lives more now.

Here are a few photos of our Easter and  a recent trip to Mount Vernon.

Simple Joys: Spiritual, Emotional and Physical Nourishment

One of my greatest needs that has been the hardest to meet since we moved here has been finding a new church for our family to attend.  I'm finding this much harder this time than I did in our previous city.  At that point, W hadn't been born yet and it never occurred to me that I needed to find a church to meet his needs as well as my own.  We were lucky with our church home there.  They have wonderful children's programs, and a nursery staff  who were kind and loving and who knew our family well.  We didn't even use the nursery there all that much.  W stayed with us in services till he was a year old and started becoming disruptive.  Before he turned two we started keeping him with us for the first part of the service and taking him to the nursery if sitting still and quiet started to become an unrealistic expectation for him.  He is a toddler and I think that an hour long service is a long time to expect a little boy to sit quietly and not be disruptive, even if he has plenty to occupy him.

Now, with his new job my husband is working on Sundays so I am also left to take W to church on my own.  In the past he did much of the active parenting during church, respecting my need to be able to participate fully in worship as a way to recharge for the week.  We have tried quite a number of churches since we moved here.  Some were just bad fits all the way around.  Others would have been wonderful places for me, but did not have other children W's age or even nurseries for him.  Another, which I thought was going to work for our family only had a nursery intermittently, and we had very bad results when they did not.  The last time we went to that church, I left in tears as I chased W back through the doors after his third energetic running screaming trip down the aisle during a prayer.  I left feeling more drained and spiritually and emotionally depleted than when we arrived.  It was suddenly very obvious, that this church, while lovely, was not going to meet the needs of W or myself on a regular basis and our search started all over again.

This past week we tried yet another church, and I'm cautiously optimistic.  I took W into the service to start, and he loved all of the singing that started the service.  When he started to become fidgety, I took him to the nursery and he had a wonderful time!  The nursery was staffed by a paid attendant (never realized just how important this is in terms of the nursery being a safe and reliable place before) who had her son who is W's age there too.  She met his needs in a kind and loving way and took the boys outside to play.  I could hear them outside having a wonderful boisterous, energetic time while I was in the service and it was really freeing for me.  The service was very different from what I am accustomed to, but it was deeply nourishing spiritually, and I felt recharged in a way, I have not been since we moved here.  The experience could not have been more different from that of the previous week.  I'm praying that our future experiences there will be as positive.  W had not wanted to even go to church again after the experience we had the previous week.  On Sunday, while I was putting him down for his nap, he turned to me and said "Mama, I love church".

After the service W and I stopped by our local farmer's market for the first time.  It was wonderful!  Almost everything I could ask for in a farmer's market.  It's big!  Lots and lots of vendors who grow crops locally.  Many sell plants as well as produce. The prices were quite reasonable.  Most were comparable or better than what we've been paying at the grocery store.  The herb man is wonderful and knowledgeable and we had a wonderful conversation about the uses of different types of lavender.

This is what we ended up buying at the market...

Two bags of lettuce, asparagus, kohlrabi, sugar snap peas, radishes, baby potatoes, a bag of English lavender, a bag of French lavender,  a chocolate mint plant, an elfin thyme plant (which is the cutest daintiest thing I've ever seen), an English lavender plant and a zinnia.

W couldn't wait to try a radish after we read Peter Rabbit hundreds of times this spring.

He spit it back out pretty quickly so I'm guessing he thought the flavor was a bit strong.  He has been eating them in salads this week though.    We have eaten so well this week and the market ingredients have really energized my cooking. Each dinner has featured some ingredient from the market.  So far we have used our farmers' market ingredients to make several salads,  asparagus pasta (as a treat we added some shrimp and I also added lemon juice and dill to the recipe), steamed sugar snap peas,  a lavender cake (heavenly), and roasted kohlrabi and baby potatoes.  I've also taken to having a cup of lavender tea in the evening before bed.  I think we will make a habit of going to the market each week after church.

All in all, by the time we arrived home last week I felt so nourished: spiritually, emotionally and physically.  Even better, I knew that W had been as well.  It makes our situation after this move feel much less desperate too, which is such a comfort.

In other good news this week, we also found out on Sunday that W and I have been accepted into the Parent-Child class at the local Waldorf School for September.  It feels like such a long way off, but it really gives us something to look forward to as well.  We are really excited!

We Have Caterpillars In The Parsley!

This morning W and I stepped out on our balcony to cut some herbs to put into our morning omelet.  While cutting the parsley, I noticed this caterpillar.

I ran back inside to get my camera.  When I returned I photographed not only this caterpillar but also two others!

I think these must have hatched from eggs left by our "flutterby" friend two weeks ago.  This is so so exciting.  I've done a little research and I'm pretty sure this is some sort of swallowtail, possibly a black swallow tail.  If anyone reading this is better at identifying butterflies and caterpillars than I am, please give me you opinion on this!  Also, since these little guys munching on our parsley are a covered in little "horns" I think it is safe to say they are probably first instar and have quite a bit of growing to do before they form their chrysalis.  I hope our balcony will be a hospitable place for them to grow and pupate.  I'm more than willing to share our parsley with these amazing creatures.


I'll be sure to keep gently checking in on them and take more pictures.

Ladybugs Under The Old Oak Tree

"Ladybug ladybug fly away home..."

I have a confession to make.  I have a serious aversion to real ladybugs.  It goes back to my college days when thousands of them invaded my dorm room each year.  Every year our dorm was overrun by ladybugs sunning themselves on the outside walls.  That was fine.  It was when they all moved into the dorm that I started having issues with them.  I had always really liked ladybugs until I had to live with huge numbers of them falling from the ceiling and light fixtures on my while I slept or into my drink.  Just thinking about it makes me shiver and feel itchy.

So, fast-forward ten + years, and I am ever so slowly embracing the ladybug again.  I know they are a very beneficial insect to have in your garden, and are harmless in the great outdoors (probably indoors too, but I have baggage around that.)  When I took W strawberry picking, I even caught one for him to see.  It didn't even make me squirm.  I was very proud of myself for being able to handle and enjoy seeing the ladybug.  

I'm not sure this could have happened if W and I had not been doing some serious ladybug reading.  Our first trip to the library in our new town, we found Ladybug, Ladybug by Ruth Brown.  It quickly became one of our favorite books.

The illustrations in this version of this nursery rhyme is just so beautiful!  The depictions of the English countryside where the ladybug meets animals are so gentle and lovely.  W and I also love the poetry of the rhyme and it is yet another example of our love of nursery rhymes that I wrote about previously.

So, to celebrate my new found respect (and possibly even love) of all things ladybug, the newest addition to my Under The Old Oak Tree Etsy shop is this needle felted ladybug.

Simple Joys: Preserving Spring

Recently one of the mom's from my old local attachment and natural parenting groups sent us all a link about making violet jelly.  Later that day W and I took a walk and realized that our new neighborhood was teeming with violets so we decided to give it a try.  Our family went for a walk and picked as many violets around the neighborhood as we could.  Two cups is quite a lot of violets to pick!  But it was a wonderful family outing and we found some really lovely wooded areas in our neighborhood.

We brought them home and I then washed them and let the steep over night.

After they were strained the water was a lovely deep blue color and the violets were practically white.

The magic happened when we added the lemon juice.  The violet infusion turned from deep blue to this beautiful bright shade of pink-violet.

I also recently used this same recipe to make rose petal jelly.  For that we used some of the roses from our balcony and petals from some of the rose bushes my husband cared for last summer ( we visited his old workplace and I gathered them from some of the roses that were starting to fade a bit).

Of course W and I also made jam from all those strawberries we picked.

Here's a sampling of our spring preserves.

Of the three I think the rose petal jelly is my favorite.  It is delicate and just heavenly.  It doesn't have the pink color I was expecting, but I did not want to add food coloring to it.  My mom and I have however toyed with the idea of adding a couple of drops of beet juice  to make it more pink but hopefully not enough to make it taste like beets.  She's going to test it out so we can see how it works.

 I was greatly surprised  by how much I enjoyed the violet jelly.  I remember really disliking some violet candy I was given as a child.  I found the taste to be sickening and can honestly still remember it very clearly.  I'm not sure why I even actually decided to make violet jelly based on that experience.  This jelly was however, much more mild and not sickening at all.  The taste was pleasant, floral and not overpowering at all.  We served the violet jelly with our Easter dinner and it was a big hit.


I'm going to use this post to participate in Natural Suburbia's Creative Friday.  So fun to see what so many people are creating!

Strawberry Time Under The Old Oak Tree

May is strawberry time here Under The Old Oak Tree.  This week W  and I went to our favorite berry patch and picked two of these great big buckets of wonderful strawberries.

W had such fun picking the berries and sampling of course.

He also loved playing in the sprinkler system while I paid for our berries and transfered them into containers to take home.

The next two days were all about STRAWBERRIES!  We ate lots of whole fresh berries, made jam, and shortcake, ate sliced berries on our yogurt, and made roasted strawberries to eat now and froze some.  I think the roasted strawberries which are surprisingly sweet yet savory would be especially wonderful on a sandwich in place of mayonnaise.

Even W's doll Sammy, got to have a strawberry for breakfast.

All of these strawberries inspired me to make an Under The Old Oak Tree creation.    She will was created for my etsy shop.

Our First Candlemas

Yesterday we celebrated our first Candlemas. One of the major ways we have chosen to bring Waldorf principals into our home is by celebrating some of the festivals. I love how they add to the gentle rhythm of the year. At this point the celebrations are as much for DH and I as they are for W. He's just over a year old, and while he seems to enjoy the celebrations, most of it doesn't really mean too much to him yet. This year was our first experience with Candlemas and it was truly lovely. I wrote previously about our preparations for Candlemas.

I think they served us well. Yesterday, W watched while I made butter in a jar with marbles. It was fun, but my jar was too small and I didn't have an empty larger one so everything was transferred to a larger plastic food storage container and it worked beautifully. Lesson learned...for a pint of cream use a quart size jar. Talking to Grammy today, I was also told that I should have rinsed my butter in water to keep it from going rancid. I need to do some more research on that and think about it for next year. For the small amount of butter we made (it just filled one of my small ramekins) I'm not going to worry about it going rancid though. This was the best tasting, sweetest, yummiest butter I can ever remember eating! W and I also both really enjoyed the buttermilk too! We ate a little bit of the butter on some homemade bread as a snack and saved the rest for dinner.

W and I also worked on getting the living room and dining room of our home clean during the day. This was sort of the ceremonial beginning to our spring cleaning but was really mostly just a surface straightening up. W of course proceeded to pull all of his toys back out after that, so things didn't seem to be straightened up for very long.

While W ate his lunch I planted the forget-me-not and alpine strawberry seeds for our little nature table pots. W watched while he ate and was very interested in the whole process. I'm really looking forward to involving him with the garden this year. He loves to be outside and he loves plants. We come from a long line of gardeners and it is something I look forward to sharing with him as well.

For our dinner, I had not ground any wheat earlier and wanted to make whole wheat pancakes, so I decided on these blender pancakes. They were pretty good with lots of texture to them. I mixed up a double batch, but because I have problems turning pancakes (one skill I have been trying to master my whole life with no success) DH agreed to do the actual cooking of the pancakes and "ground hog" sausage. I was also happy that there were several breakfasts worth of pancakes left over to go into our freezer.

We placed our birthday ring with all 9 candles on an elevated plate and placed our heart candle in the middle.

When they were all lit and the lights were turned off they gave a beautiful glow to the room and plenty of light to read by. DH commented that if we light candles like that every night, we could greatly reduce our use of electricity. I of course love this idea! W seemed to be enchanted by the candle light too, repeating "See! See!" over and over.

While we gobbled pancakes, I told DH about the special things W and I had already done to celebrate Candlemas and talked about the symbolism of the different things we had done. We also read some Candlemas verses and DH sang a rousing and theatrical version of this groundhog song to the delight of W and myself. I also read from Luke 2:22-40 which tells of Jesus being presented at the temple and encountering Simeon and Anna. After that I read this charming little story about the Snowdrop which I chose to use instead of the story about St. Bridget, which I'll save till W is older.

We ended our meal with a discussion about the upcoming season of Lent and I have decided to give up soda for Lent this year.

Later in the evening, while DH was doing the bedtime routine with W, I spent some time reading The Postage Stamp Garden Book: Grow Tons of Vegetables in Small Places and planning my early cold season garden. I only have about a 4'X4' space to work with beside our back steps so this book gives me wonderful ideas about what and how much to plant there and how to get the most out of my little plot. This spring I plan to plant sugar snap peas, carrots, radishes, beets, lettuce and onions in my little plot!

As Candlemas is also a time for renewed creativity, I finished off the evening working on a handwork project. I am currently knitting up bunches of little cotton squares to use as family cloth. I'm sure sewing up some flannel would be a quicker process for this, but, I'm just more likely to get around to knitting some squares up, so that's what I am doing for now to get the ball rolling.