Chasing Bluebirds

walking to the garden

i can make out an "A" in this, but not sure of the rest. someone wrote with a bird of paradise flower... twisted into the fence the garden was so lovely today, we have a big storm coming in the bananaberry plot lisa's sweet plot. i am still in a major state of mourning, can't shake the grief right now. hoping to get over it with the passing of time. in some ways i dont want to forget how important friends and family are, how precious life is, how we need to reach out to people because you never know when they may be taken from you. ahhh life!!!

winter garden

and lastly: the baby hog in action... dinner at the felt mouse house thanks jen!

free range kids (mish mash post)

wow, i found the greatest website, something to think about for sure. i often talk with friends about how we grew up with so much more freedom than kids have today. i also had a patient recently tell me she works at a university and parents are actually registering their "kids" for college and intervening with professors if they feel their "child" has been "mistreated". she said it is epidemic, meddling parents in college!! who knew??? it is embarrassing to think a college student would have a parent involved in their schooling this way, when do you let your kid grow up? college isnt the right time? hmmm....

handmade christmas. this is a bean bag i got from the craft fair, i have been using it as a paper weight. it works great! might be a nice assembly line gift... i have enough fabric for sure. i am a big fan of lara bars, i have even made my own version of peanut butter cookie, the best!! i went to their blog and posted a comment, guess what? i got a t shirt and a whole case of bars!!! thank you lara bars! i am realizing more and more, i am a cat person. lu lu minds the plants, my dogs are driving me nuts! they are elderly and disoriented and just plain bonkers!

handmade christmas

a new design, not quite right but good enough for a christmas gift, shhhhh dont tell!

camp fire mask, garden update (it's fall?)

our mask project is underway, i am tackling a bigger craft than usual, hoping it works out (fingers crossed) i found the idea in a thrift shop craft book, my favorite kind of resource.

at least i READ the directions before starting the craft with the kids and realized it takes days and days to dry... we will bring it back next week to finish. stay tuned... speaking of "drying" it is hot and dry here, not feeling much like fall or winter. but its time to plant the winter crop: since i am making a green smoothie every single day (yesterday i had two!) i am in need of lots of greens. i planted several types of lettuce, mustard greens, collards and cabbage lots of onions, i am still eating the onions i planted in the summer and they are keeping well in the garage. i planted about 4 different kinds and six of each, hoping for a never ending supply of onions and last, sugar snap peas, about a dozen!! as usual i plant too much! i have six tiny ailing cauliflowers planted and i spent the morning babying them, all i want is cauliflower and broccoli!!! the broccoli isnt at the garden center yet, i planted a row of seeds but seeds are hit or miss. i will check back soon for the broccoli and hoping the cauliflowers make it.

"do not feed the ducks" taskforce

never thought i would be involved with this kind of volunteer work, but the ducks need us! way back in the beginning of my camp fire group, we did our guerilla art to spread the message about saving the wetlands. we also sent our local council members letters and from that, i was approached to organize a task force to help stop people from feeding the ducks at our parks. i was amazed at how harmful feeding the ducks can be and how it not only harms them, it harms the whole pond making it a truly unhealthy place to visit. in a nutshell: when ducks are given bread and crackers, their stomaches are designed to break up vegetable based food and insects (think of how bad white bread is for us, why would it be good for ducks?). the bread basically balls up with the added water, making them feel full so they dont eat what they SHOULD be eating. this makes their intestines out of whack and they have an increase in "you know what" which pollutes the pond. also, there tend to be more animals than should be in a given area since the food is given to them (ducks will move around more looking for natural food). the link between our local ponds and the wetlands is also important, migrating birds will stop by our parks and then stay instead of moving on. this causes a disruption in their mating and migration on a very large scale. something i never thought about before too is that the crumbs and waste left behind by all those human visitors, attracts mice and rats which also multiply as there is an increase in food supply. 

most people would stop if they just knew how bad it is for the ducks, pond and environment in general so we are trying to spread the word by getting kids involved. its funny, when you tell parents at the pond they need to stop feeding the ducks and why, you can get some attitude (i have had people tell me they have always fed the ducks as if thats an ok reason to continue) BUT if you educate kids, they are positive and helpful and rally behind sharing the news with others. maybe kids are used to being disciplined and parents/adults dont respond well to it? who knows!

here we are, sharing with the community:

i made "duck patrol" buttons which were a big hit. we had kids sign up to help in future projects and if they took a button, they had to promise to share with others why we shouldnt feed the ducks. a fair amount of adults grabbed them too! kids came to the table to make "do not feed the ducks" posters to take back and share with their teachers emily and brooke went up with the boy scouts to do the flag salute (we love the boy scouts!) lizzie had fun too! the school year and camp fire is in full swing, it will be halloween before you know it and then on in to christmas and another year. trying to slow the pace down, work less, paint more... trying to find a balance, same old story. i am looking forward to a new arrival (hi jen!) and planning more trips (yes i am a travel addict) even though the bank account is in the negatives, oh well! just trying to keep positive for our future and the whole world should be watching in november because whatever happens in our upcoming election is surely going to rock the world. i hope i am drinking champagne and lighting fireworks in celebration (rather than drinking tequila straight from the bottle to numb the pain) you know what i mean, right? ok, enough of that! so spread the word to all your friends: dont feed the ducks!

yosemite fairy houses

i am obsessed with the little travelers, the movies and the website, i just love everything about this little family. my girls have even mentioned how well the two sisters get along and we have used them as an example when there is disagreements. emily or lizzie will say, "remember how the little travelers get along? we need to get along too" love it! 

on the blog there are many fun parenting ideas including the building of fairy houses. i made a fairy house for emily's 3rd birthday, it was a pixie theme and i remember how fun these are to make. i like how they are made from only nature and there is no limit to the creativity. our camping neighbor joined in and we spent days collecting feathers and rocks, dried flowers and sticks in preparation for making some fairy houses in the little meadow near our campsite.  we also rented this fairy movie from netflix and the girls watched it a few times, it was very sweet. i recommend it, very simple and quiet.

the girls got into my paints a bit, making a few painted sticks for the houses, emily made a sign on an egg carton this was so fun and i am sure a kid or two will stumble onto these cool houses and think they are neat (not to mention a few fairies)

my kind of housekeeping

what a cool name, never thought i would say that but it just fits. the tour of housekeeping camp:

yosemite, what took me so long?

we are back from a much needed vacation at yosemite. all i can say is WOW!!! for years i have heard all about yosemite, living in california it is relatively close by. i have good friends who have invited us every august to camp with them and year after year we couldnt coordinate a trip. in january, after returning from colorado, i just reserved a housekeeping cabin at yosemite for august. i had no idea what to expect or what the housekeeping cabins would be like, there are very few pictures of them out there that i could find. this month has been so hectic, i barely had time to pack and left everything for chris (who did an amazing job getting it together, good boy scout that he is). i thought august would be crazy busy but found it wasnt, i guess everyone wants to see the waterfalls (i seriously didnt realize the waterfalls would be dried up in august, thats typical me when it comes to planning!) even without the waterfalls, yosemite is the most beautiful place i have ever seen, it blows away any mountain destination i have visited. 

i had no idea how the layout of yosemite valley was, that it is actually a valley with cliffs all around. it is organized in the most fantastic way, you can park your car for the entire week and use the free bus shuttle to see every site. bike trails are abundant and well connected. its the perfect place for families because you can move around so easily. 

there are meadows and rock cliffs, wild flowers and super tall pine trees, oaks and aspen trees. even in summer it was bright green and lush, hot as hell with a cool river to splash in (we took lots of afternoon dips) the staff at the park keeps it clean, the buses come and go like clockwork, there are shops and casual places to eat (ice-cream!) and at the housekeeping cabins we had showers (they even give you a clean towel to use!) and a laundromat (loved this since we ran out of socks quickly). there is just too much to post all in one go so i will do this yosemite trip in several parts... these are just a few of the many views around the valley.

busting out tomatoes

actually, i am still pleased as pudding with my garden and the over abundance of tomatoes. i have had a standing bowl of salsa for weeks now and eating pasta with tomato/garlic/onion sauce nightly is nothing to complain about  (i even throw in zucchini). all i ever wanted was tomatoes on top of tomatoes and then even more tomatoes... we will see in a month from now but i think i will still be over the moon with these red babies.

in case you are wondering, my favorite by far is the "juliet" with tomatoes a little larger than a grape but a tad smaller than a roma. they are coming in groups of six or more, super firm and red... sweet and amazing. my early girl is running out of gas, the beefstake had to be pulled (i got about 20 from it before it got too buggy and yellow). the orange tomato had to go today, i got maybe 5 from it before it got sick. the cherry is going strong, the brandywine is putting out these huge pink tomatoes (in the picture its at the top left), the italian roma is in full swing and something i cant remember is busting at the seams with medium round tomatoes (i think it is surplice or something like that). i planted a late tomato bush that is just starting to flower, hoping to keep the season as long as possible. i have never had sunflowers before and can i just say, i am in love!!! having to seed and re-seed over and over gave me quite the variety!