Down to 4

In an effort to help heal our backyard before the house goes on the market, we did a little bartering with a few of our chickens. We kind of miss them, but three of our girls have a lovely new home.

"the market, of course"

As I was preparing dinner last night, I heard Seth moving the trash cans away from the wall to play. This is pretty much a daily occurrence, so I didn't think anything of it. A few minutes later he was bringing in his play food and register. Then I heard him asking his brother if he wanted lettuce, strawberries, or kale. Not wanting to make a big deal out of their playing, I kept cooking, but they definitely had my attention. I heard Seth ask his brother if he wanted carrots, blueberries, or beets. Silas loves pickled beets, so that was his pick. Seth asked his brother where his bag was, and Silas ran to the spot where we keep all of our reusable bags and brought one back. That's when I grabbed the camera before this little play episode was over. Seth piled up the vegetables on his little cash register to "weigh" them and then added them to his brother's bag.  I asked Seth what he was playing and he said "the market, of course."

If you don't think buying local food from local farmers makes an impact, then ask these boys. They will tell you. They see the relationships. They see the fresh food. They see the hard work it takes to not only bring this food to the market but the hard work it takes growing food. They know that our thankfulness for food goes beyond just what we eat. They hear our prayers as we call the farmers who grew our food by name. Yep, it has made a big impact on their little lives. It will make a big impact on your life, too.

A CSA Share with Rough Draft Farmstead

For the past twelve weeks, we have been enjoying lovely food from Rough Draft Farmstead.  

We signed up for Rough Draft's 12 week CSA just as our other CSA (community supported agriculture) account was down to single digits. 

To say coming and picking up our food each Tuesday was a blessing would be an understatement. 

Hannah and Jesse are such an inspiration! 

They are also two of the sweetest people you will ever meet!   

  

{our food from Week 1}

Each week we were greeted by baskets of food that were gorgeously displayed. 

Unlike many other CSA distributions, we got to pick exactly which produce we wanted each week.

  

Little note cards indicated how much of each vegetable we were to add to our bag.

 So we would weigh and pick out just what we wanted. 

This allowed the boys to help, too!

 

 Along with our delicious, organically grown food, we received a little newsletter letting us know what was in our share for the week, a weekly farmstead update, and more information about one particular food included in the share, like this one.

 

 By picking out what food we wanted each week, 

we were able to take the time to build friendships and community. 

That's just as important as healthy food, after all.

Thank you, Jesse and Hannah!

{Gratitude} Lately

Every day I look around in amazement at all the 

beautiful, yet simple, things that I'm so thankful for.

 

 Lately I've been grateful for...

 a little boy that sings and plays so passionately

 

a freezer full of meat and the blessings of healthy, local food

 

another airport homecoming party

 and for this sweet girl that is now home with her forever family

 

this market that is so dear to our hearts

  

and for an afternoon full of learning how to process chickens,

 hard work, and blossoming friendships

Learning Highlights: October 2013

 The month of October was filled with learning about fire safety and pumpkins. October is fire safety awareness month and Seth claims he wants to be a firefighter when he grows up.  So he was a big fan of all of our fire safety learning. You could find him on many occasions "dressed" like a firefighter playing with a fire truck or fighting pretend fires around the house.

We also met with our co-op group and went to a couple of fire safety events around town. 

We went to the Firehouse Festival one evening.

 

  

We also went to a special fire safety story time at the library 

where the kids got to see inside of a fire truck.

We also learned about the science of fire using some birthday candles.

 

 Most mornings are just filled with lots of reading, some writing, and a few other simple activities. One resource we are loving is the Trace, Lace, Color, & Paste workbook. This gives Seth a bit of practice following directions coloring, cutting, and gluing.

 Scattered throughout the month, we did various pumpkin activities. 

We made a pumpkin life cycle craft.

 We also made a prediction about whether various sized pumpkins would sink or float.

 They will all float and this amazed Seth. 

Then we tested other items in the backyard to determine if they would sink or float.

 We read How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? by Margaret Mcnamara and the Pumpkin Patch Parable by Liz Curtis Higgs. We cleaned out our own pumpkin and while we were carving it, we dried our seeds in the oven to be able to count them just like in the book.

 This month we've been counting beyond 30. We've been practicing counting to 100. The pumpkin seeds let us practice this several times. There were 427 seeds in our pumpkin! Yes, we counted them all. Then we added a bit of honey and pumpkin pie spice before we ate every one of them.

It was a fun-filled month!

Preschool Co-op: Fire Safety

Today we joined our co-op friends for a morning of learning about fire safety. 

Here's a look at some of our fun...

Lara read Miss Mingo and the Fire Drill.

 Then we did a craft using a hand print as flames.

 

  

The kids practiced "Stop, Drop, and Roll." Lara would place "flames" on them and while they were rolling around she would remove them.

 

They got to practice dialing 911 (on a pretend phone).

 

Then to practice "Stay Low and Go," they got to crawl under a waving scarf (to represent smoke) and practice testing a door with the back of their hand.

  

I just can't get over the cuteness of these kids together! 

 They wanted to do all these activities over and over. The fire safety theme was a huge hit!

We have so much fun with our friends and love our days together!

Backyard Bounty: Sweet Potatoes

The sweet potato has taught us a lot this year. We learned what a sweet potato blossom looks like for the first time earlier this summer. We learned that we planted our sweet potatoes a tad too late. We learned that we should have planted the 35 slips in a very sunny spot. We did the best we could with our garden spot, but we'll know better for next year. We learned that digging for sweet potatoes is a bit trickier than digging for white potatoes. When we finally harvested our sweet potatoes yesterday, we had some tiny potatoes and some very large. The sunnier garden spots gave us bigger potatoes. The sweet potatoes will cure for about 10 days, and then we'll see how long they last.