My blogging is so sporadic these days and I've learned that instead of trying to back track and "update" the blog, it's best if I just pick up where I am.  I would have loved it if I would have blogged about Grand Marais but I will have to settle for my abbreviated Instagram posts.  That being said, I feel like our time in Grand Marais has helped to re-energize me about life here at home.  When we were up north we met a few herbalists who were so full of knowledge and passion about the plant world.  I had been wondering what this beautiful tree was that I didn't recognize and learned from them that it was a Mountain Ash or Rowan tree (this was even more exciting because I had just finished this book, and really wanted to "meet" the Rowan tree).  The herbalists told us that we could harvest the berries and make them into a syrup that would have benefits similar to the elderberry.  So, I did and though I haven't made the syrup yet, somehow that meeting inspired me to go into my garden and pick some herbs to dry.  So far I'm drying hyssop, lavender (leaves), sage, rosemary, and eucalyptus.  I've been dreaming of the things I will make with them and until then, loving the look of them hanging above the fireplace.





Speaking of the garden, I did a "last harvest" and found so many treasures.  Fingerling potatoes (that I planted from sprouting potatoes off my counter when I had to replace all the edamame sprouts that had been eaten by somebody), 4 more delicata squash, 2 pie pumpkins, some peppers, and a lot of funny shaped sweet potatoes.  I also brought in a bunch of dried black beans and Iyla and Nora helped me "crack them" (as Iyla says) and save them.  We also brought in some of Nora's beautiful zinnias to dry and save the seeds of.  For the first time in 3 years I have been able to work on putting the garden to sleep.  So far I've done 4 (out of 20) gardens and I hope to do more before the snow falls.







The leaves are still beautiful here and everyone has been enjoying raking and jumping in them.  My favorite thing they do is make a giant "nest" out of them and then sit inside looking like little birds.



Ryan got a very nice buck bow hunting this year.  He's had a lot of bad luck with bow hunting over the past few years so we were all so excited for him to have shot one on his first night hunting.  It was also the first time he was able to harvest a deer from our land, which seemed really special.  It was only his second time butchering the deer himself and processing all the meat which ended up involving all of us working hard over the last 3 days.  At one point Jackson was grinding the meat, Nora and I were packaging it up, and Ryan was in the barn continuing to cut steaks (Grace was doing homework or we probably would have had her involved as well).



Iyla is growing as fast as ever.  One of her newest things is that she loves to dress herself.  On this particular day she put on pants, a dress, a backwards onsie, and two hats.  Later she added one more shirt just for good measure.

I get asked a lot why we homeschool. There are a lot of answers I give (they want too, you can tailor curriculum to each child, you can spend more time on things that interest you and learning outside the box, you have more freedom, etc.) The reasons I initially think of generally fall under the category "for my children". But sometimes a moment happens when I'm struck by the realization that I'm doing this for me too.

Today I got up from the table of math and reading and applesauce making to grab a glass of water, and when I turned around and saw this scene I had just that thought. At the end of the day there's probably no one at this table who would say this was their favorite part of the day. But it was definitely mine.

Summer Days

I've been trying to cherish the quiet moments of summer.  I overheard the best conversation at the co-op between two people running into each other the other day.  One women asked the other women how her summer has been going and what they've been up to and the other women replied, "It's been really good!  We've done a lot of resting!"  I'm not sure if the first women legitimately didn't hear her or was so taken aback by this uncommon response but her response was "what?"
But it's made me think. Yes to summer resting!  That's what summer should be.  It's my new summer slogan.

Today after I nursed Iyla we walked outside to pick our morning berries.  Iyla ate berries from my bowl as I picked them, just like the book Blueberries for Sal.  When we came in Nora woke up and came downstairs and almost immediately started listening to her audio book The Secret Garden.  And even though I was jumping in in the middle, I'd read it enough times as a kid to fall right under it's spell.  It made for such a nice morning.  Grace and Jackson slept until 10:00 on account of Grace going to summer Tuesdays last night and Jackson going to the Twins game and neither getting to bed until midnight.  So after another lazy (RESTFUL) hour I eventually started forcing them to get ready for the day.  BUT it was a good morning and I felt present in it.

These pictures are from after the storm a few nights ago.  They were such a fun surprise to see how they turned out when I pulled them up from my camera.  My two garden helpers, always reminding me of the important things when it comes to gardening, like magic and singing while weeding and kissing your plants.

 Our garden has been a monarch haven this year.  We have been enjoying studying them so much as we pull weeds and tuck more lettuce and spinach in where there's space.  Nora especially has been keeping track of where they are (the garden is full of scattered milkweed plants) and how they've grown.  At the moment we don't have any caterpillars out there that we know of (though we do have some eggs) but at one point we counted 12 of them.  But inside our butterfly "house" is hanging in up in the window with three monarch chrysalises inside.



It seems that new life is bursting from every corner of our little "farm" right now, albeit in very tiny forms.  We have three orange cones surrounding the buried turtle eggs outside our back door.  Inside there is a bean in a glass jar of soil in our kitchen window, just beginning to sprout (an experiment of Nora's).  In the garden the strawberries are producing the best crop of strawberries we have ever had.  Aside from all the ones we eat while gardening we are bringing in an overflowing bowl like this and then some everyday.



While I was out working in the yard today I found the tiniest toad, no bigger than my pinky fingernail.  Iyla and Nora were so enamored with it.  Such a magical time of year.

Iyla Update

My two favorite things Iyla says right now are-

(After picking up anything slightly resembling a phone or a camera) "I'm going to take a smile" which is her way of telling you she's going to take your picture.

AND

When she wants to know if it's okay to take her shoes off she asks
"Can I go barefooting?"

She is obsessed with eating strawberries out of the garden right now. But she's also learned that asking "should we go out in the garden?" Or "can we go out to the garden?" Is a great way to trick me into going outside. Often times the minute we get to the garden gate she turns around and beelines it to her true destination.

She loves anything to do with water. Taking a bath of course but also washing her hands (which she then usually begs to also wash her feet), "swimming", stomping in puddles, playing in the sink, and even just drinking water from a cup.

She says "actually" a lot and uses correctly in a sentence.

She loves books so much.  Especially books that rhyme.  Some of her current favorites are anything by Dr. Seuss but most recently Cat in the Hat, Bear Snores On, Seven Silly Eaters and I Love you Stinky Face.

She really likes putting on her own clothes (and other people's clothes) which sometimes results in her wearing several random layers of clothes- pajama pants with a swimsuit over the top of that with one of Nora's shirts over the top of both of those.

She brings so much joy to our family.  Her big siblings still fight to go up and get her after she wakes up from a nap.

Summer Solstice

I've had a hard couple days.  After getting a very violent stomach flu virus on Wednesday night, I spend Thursday night helping Nora get through the same virus (except that she had it worse than me and was up throwing up every half hour all night long).  Yesterday when I woke up I still didn't feel better.  I spent the day trying to get things done with a queasy stomach in between a lot of sitting.  Aside from feeling sick, it was more than a little depressing.  It was beautiful outside and the garden was calling me.  But since walking more than a few steps made me nauseous I was trapped indoors.

But then by late afternoon (after a long nap) I suddenly started to feel better.  Ryan made us an amazing dinner and I was able to eat for the first time in two days.  After dinner, I read Nora and Jackson some of our read aloud (the last book in the Heartwood series that we just adore) and we got Nora to bed early.  Then later downstairs, I had this really great moment.  Jackson and Ryan were watching the baseball game, Grace was reading in the window seat, Nora was on the mend and asleep upstairs, and I was reading Iyla a stack of books- and I just had an overwhelmingly happy moment of clarity- life is so good.

Which leads me to today, one of my favorite days ever.  It began with a little time reading my book "Notes to Self", followed by time a quiet morning in the garden.  Then we all decided to play a game of baseball, which was silly and chaotic and so much fun I didn't want to stop.





Later Ryan started working on the new porch.  And I went back out to the garden.  Iyla is so in love with out there right now because there are monarch caterpillars everywhere to find and red ripe strawberries to eat.  I weeded and planted and watered and enjoyed every minute.

Meanwhile Grace was inside making this amazing cake for our Summer Solstice party we decided to have (even though it was a day late).  We were all feeling better and it was a beautiful summer day so we decided a party was in order.  The cake was so beautiful and she topped it with our strawberries. It was absolutely delicious! Iyla couldn't stop asking for more.






{she used this recipe  but used wheat flour instead of white, with my mom's Christmas cookie frosting recipe which she added strawberries too.}

Aside from strawberry cake, we had homemade pizzas for dinner with garden toppings.  I tried a combo of arugula, oregano, chives, basil, and sausage which was SO good.  After dinner Jackson talked us into doing a small fireworks show for us.  Iyla thought they were great as long as they weren't too loud.







We ended the night in the field chasing fireflies.  Truly the perfect summer day.  We will for sure make this a new tradition.

What was most fascinating to me at the end of the day was realizing that our impromptu Solstice party never would have happened had we not gotten sick.  This really amazing day just never would have materialized.  I'm still thinking about that and how life is always taking me on little surprise journeys that I hadn't anticipated.

Right now all my mornings begin with me sneaking outside for a few minutes (usually after I nurse Iyla) to pick a bowl full of black raspberries for our breakfast.  Today as I was doing that I started thinking about how many memories of black raspberries are woven through our lives from the 11 years we've lived here, beginning the very first summer we were here and "discovered" them. A baby Jackson shoving fistfuls into his mouth (nothing has changed there), making jam with Ryan one night after the kids were asleep, making muffins with the kids, cleaning berry stains out of the rug (already have some new ones this year), adding them to pancakes, making syrup for Scott's homemade ice cream on the 4th of July, Ryan covered in head to toe bug netting spending hours picking them by the bucketful, topping them on yogurt with granola, black raspberry pie, stained fingers and lips- so many of my mothering memories are tied to our black raspberries.  I'm thinking once my kids are grown they will find it hard pressed to fight the urge to find some sort of berry to pick come June.

I know Saturday isn't the beginning of the week but it's important I start there because I got to spend it all by myself!  The boys were up north sucker spearing and so the girls and I stayed at my parent's for the weekend.  My mom watched the kids on Saturday so I could have the day.  From 9 in the morning to 8 at night I gardened, I wrote, I painted.  My cup was so full.

Over the last few weeks I've been trying so hard to do better with homeschooling.  Trying to stay present, really make time for what we need to do- work as well as fun- and trying so hard to soak it all in.  Grace will be at school next year so this is the last year I'll be homeschooling all four.  I just know I'm going to miss having her home and being with all of us.  I've been successful here and there.

It was beautiful on Monday so Grace and Jackson biked to the library for books and Grace's tutor session.  I love that we live close enough to our little town for those kinds of adventures to be part of our homeschool day.

Nora has been my garden helper and I've enjoyed it so much.  So far we've weeded and weeded, planted peas, carrots, lettuce and kale as well as replanted some escaping strawberries.

We are also in the middle of a big bedroom rearrange.  Not sure how long it will take given that these days tasks like this move in super slow motion.  s

Iyla has decided that it is best to be outside.  Clothes or not she is usually ready with her boots on to go adventuring.

That's all I can think of for now.

Whenever those first few days of true spring arrive, where a fire is no longer needed, I always find myself feeling a little bit ungrounded.  Like the heartbeat of our home just stopped ticking for a few minutes.  The chair in front of the fire is where I am always able to sit and recharge myself.  Somehow a few minutes of fire gazing (or an hour if I'm lucky) can help me feel rejuvenated after the busyness of the day has taken it's toll on me.  Today with no fire inside, I found myself outside with Iyla on the deck, face in the sun and was reminded that there is a heartbeat here too, another way to recharge myself.  There is something about stopping and just sitting in warmth, no matter the season, I need it.



The flowers are starting to bloom.  Finally.  This might be the latest the magnolia tree has ever bloomed.  And we were very excited to see this butterfly.  And little cups of flowers have started showing up in my kitchen.  Yup I'm excited to move into the colorful side of spring.

A Real Good One

It started to smell like spring this weekend.  Everyone had a new energy about them.  Even Shadow seemed to have spring fever, meowing to go outside then a few minutes later pawing at the window to come in.

On Friday we opened up the camper and Iyla and I got it all cleaned and washed the sheets.  I love our camper beyond measure.  Going in there each spring is like unpacking a box of memorabilia from some of our best family memories.

As I was making dinner Friday night I looked out the window to see the kids had brought the kayaks down to the flooded pond in the woods.  I love that they are so explorative and creative.  Iyla and I went down to visit them and we made plans to spend more time down there over the weekend.

Saturday I woke up crabby.  During Iyla's nap I meditated and rested which in case I forget again is ALWAYS the answer.  Anyway, the rest of Saturday was my favorite.  Playing in the camper, homemade pizzas, roasting tiny marshmallows over a fire in the woods, more winter kayaking, watching basketball, playing Guess Who with Nora, and "bowling" with Jackson and Nora.  Hanging out with Ryan in the camper and then later watching a comedian.  The best day.

Sunday Grace, Iyla and I went to find a new floor for the camper (the extreme weather this winter caused the floor to crack in several spots).  Ryan and Jackson got the taps in.  Nothing too spectacular, but still a nice Sunday.



Weekends like this carry so much more weight then the not good ones.  Cup full.

We've been catching up on some of the quiet, snowy, peaceful winter days I love so much (and we usually get in January).  We've gotten so much snow over the last month and a half that school has been canceled I think 5 times.  It's made work difficult for Ryan too.  But I do have to say I'm enjoying the beauty and the slowness of it so much.

Pot Pie and One Year Olds

Tonight as I was making dinner and simultaneously trying to keep Iyla happy with flour and pots and pans, I glanced at my old blog post with the recipe I was making and realized I was in exactly this same spot again, almost 10 years later.  Cutting vegetables for chicken pot pie while also keeping a one year old happy.  Not an easy task.



But maybe a little easier this 4th time around with my helpers.  That once one year old who use to steal chips is now happy to let his little sisters ride around on him like a horse.

There is so much I have to catch up on on this blog.  This seems to be the pattern I have been stuck in here for the last few years.  Post, post, post, disappear.  Once I disappear it's always so hard to come back because I'm so overwhelmed with everything I "should" catch up on.  I do use this as a record of our days so I love when I've been able to keep it updated.  But I also use for myself, to pause and reflect on the daily moments.  Everything seems to move so fast these days, it fills my cup to stop momentarily and stand back to look at my life and these crazy growing Beings that I share it with.



So that's what I was thinking about tonight as I pulled this out of the oven.

Maybe this will inspire me to back post everything from the last few months.  Or maybe it will inspire me to post what happens tomorrow.  Or maybe this stand as my only 2019 post until August.