driftwood bird sculptures

We took a walk early one morning in Downs Park, MD at a little beach I remembered had lots of driftwood. We collected  three bags full of all sizes of drift wood and brought them home to create works of art. Each piece of wood was so unique and the kids immediately saw something magical and alive in them. With just a drill, some dowels and a little hot glue, they created something beautiful. Jetta made a flying bird with stones glued to it for eyes and ears and other decoration.  Pilot made a great blue heron with it's neck tucked into it's wing on which he glued little feathers he found at the beach . I have set aside some wood for myself that I am going to use to make a crane. I am looking forward to that. I love using nature as a guide to creativity. There is an endless amount of material and not one thing is the same as another. And finding the materials is half the fun!

This Moment: flying high

This is a special moment from the past week that I want to stop, savor and enjoy. If you want to see other moments being shared this morning, go over to SouleMama. 

in my kitchen with my kids this week

::4 year old fingers cracking pastured eggs::

::little hands learning some knife skills while making a soup for a sick Daddy::

::muffins made with crispy nuts, carrots, cinnamon, nutmeg, stevia, eggs and lard::

(and no, I don't know the proportions. I am working on a cook book with my kids and we are going to have to measure everything out to create the recipes. This muffin batter should be the consistency of slow cooked oatmeal though)

::Jetta mixing herbs from the garden into the meat for hamburgers::

::the first season of apples freshly picked from our own tree::

:: apple pie: it is not burned,.....the color is dark due to the teff flour we used::

:: putting his own soul into whipping that cream::

::having so much fun!::

Apple pie with my daughter

 This post is a part of Kelly the Kitchen Kop’s Real Food Wednesday. 

I spent the afternoon with my daughter yesterday making an apple pie. This was no ordinary apple pie, oh no. This was our first apple pie made from the apples from our baby apple tree. These are it's first apples and they are delicious. The perfect combination of sweet and sour and just right. I know we are a little early for apple pie season, but my daughter really wanted to make one and the apples seemed ready and willing.
The time we spend cooking together always feels like a gift from heaven to me. I spent most of my childhood begging my mother to cook with me or let me cook anything at all. I had a mother (who I love with all my heart and who provided me with many other opportunity in my life other then cooking) who did not like any type of mess big or small and still to this day does not enjoy cooking, so the closest I ever got to cooking was being allowed to make rice krispies treats when I was 11 or 12. You can imagine how I feel to find myself in my own home with my own daughter sharing this beautiful process of creating food and memories together. It is like a dream come true only I am the mother this time. We have so much fun together as we add a little of this and pinch of that, talking and sharing as we go. This is a time for us to connect with each other and relax and not worry about all the bits of crumbs dropping at our feet.

After dinner last night we each took a piece of pie and can I tell you it was the best pie I have ever eaten!  We were all laughing and exclaiming about how good it was.  I think there was a bit of magic in that pie that we created ourselves. With caring hands we tending the baby tree named Apple (fittingly), with loving hands we created a pie from it's fruit, and with grateful hearts we enjoyed every last piece.

Filling: Apples, cinnamon, vanilla, date sugar, nutmeg, salt.

Here is our pie crust recipe. We adapted it from my original recipe as we did not have the type of flour that was called for. I actually think I might like this one better.  This crust will be very dark because of the color of the Teff Flour.

Gluten Free Pie Crust
(Makes enough pastry for a double crust)

1 C Teff Flour
1/2 C Organic Corn Flour
1/2 t Sea Salt
1 T Coconut Sugar
1 Egg (lightly beaten)
1/2 C Butter (or Coconut Oil if you can't have butter)
2 T Milk (add one at a time, you may not need all of it)
1 t Vanilla

Mix dry ingredients. Melt Butter and mix well into wet ingredients. Mix all ingredients together and form into a ball. (You can wrap your ball of dough in plastic and store in the fridge for a week or freeze for later.) Split ball into two. Roll out your dough between two sheets of plastic wrap. Your dough will be very fragile.(unlike normal pie dough.) You have to be careful when placing it into your pan. You may have to patch a few pieces around once you get it in. That won't affect the taste. I like to put pats of butter on top before putting it in the oven at 375 for 20 minutes and then turn it down to 350 and cover with foil for another 30-45 minutes checking it. Let it sit out covered for 20-30 minutes before serving.

My Husband and I have been working on this pie crust recipe for years now. We love it and I hope you will try it and love it too. I would enjoy hearing any feedback about it.

last day for blueberries

We almost missed blueberry season this year. Last Sat. was our last chance to pick at our favorite organic blueberry farm, so we made a family outing of it. There weren't too many to pick from, but we managed to go home with enough to freeze, make a delicious sauce, spread over oatmeal and just eat plain. By the time we left I think the kids bellies were about as full as their buckets with berries.

Pilot is our designated sauce maker. At 4 years old he can make the entire sauce by himself. I just stand near him and turn the stove on and off. He really likes the independence he gets from cooking and the trust that we have in him. Since we don't normally use recipes, I encourage the kids to taste and decide how much of an ingredient they think would by tasty.  Over time he has developed a sense of proportions and flavor that we all enjoy.

Pilot's Blueberry Sauce 

Ingredients:

 Butter (we use Grass-fed Raw butter)

Blueberries

Stevia (We like the one from Amazon Herb co.)

Cinnamon

Vanilla

This post is also a part of :

Simple Living: Toys

We have worked hard as a family to eliminate much of the toys in the house, keeping only those things that spark imaginative play, are handmade.and made from natural materials. We went around the house with large black bags removing (almost) all plastic toys, barbie dolls, even markers and other synthetic art materials. Sometimes the kids were upset with the loss of a toy but most of the time we worked together and talked about how all these things were getting in our way and how much better we would feel when we could be creative using natural toys. We talked about how special it was to use something that was made by someone's hands and that we could spend time together making our own toys to play with.  They were thrilled when I showed them their new art supplies that were not only made from natural materials like bees wax and real clay but worked so much better. The colors on the paper were so brilliant and the feel of the natural wooden pencils and wax in your hands was calming to the touch. I set up the dining room as an art table and space for them to express their creativity right in the middle of the house so we would all be together. They loved it. I did let them keep 10 (I still think that number is too high) dolls or stuffed animals each. They choose their favorites and the others went in the bag to donate. We kept board games that were not filled with bad messages or overly competitive.
So what did we notice with this major change in the house? Well, peace.  After only about one day we notice a sense of calm had entered our home. The kids would sit for hours at the art table quietly creating, or find a little basket of wooden blocks in the living room, where a mountain of toys had previously been, and quietly build something. The fighting over toys had all but disappeared. It seems that these natural toys and materials just don't have that addictive pull that so many of the mass markets children's toys have these days. The biggest discovery for me was that they didn't seem to miss anything they had given away. I never heard a mention of it again, like that stuff had never been here. They used their imagination to create things out of sticks and shells and anything that was around. Life was simpler for all of us this way. My house didn't look like a toy store and the kids were more excited and free from the clutter that was their life before. We have been living this way for almost 1.5 years now and we love it. It is such a help to have a set of guidelines when you walk into a store and are pulled in by all the bright colors and the million dollar marketing strategies. Well, we are really not even walking into those stores much any more, but that will be another post.
We are making our own toys together as a family. John just loves getting out his tools and working with the kids. I love how taking this one step toward simplicity has brought us so much space to explore, more peace, and   togetherness. We do have the occasional desperate plea for an American doll because "everybody has one!", but we talk about it together and come up with a better solution than going to buy a plastic doll that "everyone" has. Our solution today... we are off to the fabric store with pattern in hand. John loves to sew and is going to help the kids make their own dolls. They are so excited about the whole process. Dreaming of what their dolls will look like. That brings joy to my heart. It is not always easy to go against what the masses are doing, but if you follow what nature intended and what feels right in your heart, you can help your children make decisions that will bring them more happiness and joy than any company that is just trying to make money off their little innocent souls can. I feel like I have been freed from some of those entrapments myself and I am going to work my hardest to keep untying my family one day at a time.  It is amazing how happy kids can be when you take their toys away.

Here are some of my favorite places to get toys and art supplies:
http://waldorfsupplies.com/
http://www.threesisterstoys.com/
http://www.hazelnutkids.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=0