A Happy Father's Day

 Though I think the male readership of this blog may be pretty small - to any Dad's out there -Happy Father's Day! I feel very blessed to have a wonderful father, a husband who is a great father to our children, a great father-in-law and many other men in my life who do a great job of fathering their children. In this world where many father's haven't done what they should and have neglected their role as fathers -I am exceedingly blessed!

A robin's nest that was on the deck of the place Ken and I stayed at a resort last week.

Even more than the earthly fathers in my life I am exceedingly blessed to have a heavenly Father who loves and cares for me. Even if you don't have a good earthly Father you can still be blessed by a relationship with our heavenly Father. He loves every one of us!

Lady slippers that we saw on our bog walk yesterday.

In my Bible reading this past week this is one that made me think and encouraged me:

  "But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith."
1 Timothy 1:5

Is that what you are striving for?

the Iris are blooming at our house! How I love how beautiful God made them.

Spend time together

Something that I have found useful in keeping our marriage strong is to strive to be flexible to be able to work with whatever Ken’s schedule is. In our home Ken is the one who works outside the home and supports our family while I am blessed to be a homemaker. I do also have a couple of home businesses (Doing wedding flowers and teaching private music lessons) but my hours are far less scheduled than his are.

 

  This has been an intentional choice on our part as we have wanted me to be able to care for our children. It is also very beneficial for our marriage. It is my goal that just as much as possibly when Ken isn’t working that we (the whole family) or even just I am able to do things with him if he so desires. Some of the time in evenings and on weekends he wants to work on projects of his own (he does a lot of computer program developing in his off hours) but when he wants to spend time with us we try to be available.

 

  This week I have an opportunity to spend more time with Ken I just needed to be  willing to adjust my schedule a little. Ken has some continuing education classes at a big resort a couple hours south of where we live. The classes were long enough (ending late enough and starting early enough) that he didn’t feel like driving back and forth each day so he was planning on staying there. He originally planned to go by himself but then realized he would have quite a bit of his evening free and it would be more fun if I could come along.

 

 He brought it up this week so there wasn’t much time to plan and there was quite a few things on my schedule that I did need to reschedule but at the encouragement of my mom who said they would be glad to have our children stay with them for 3 nights I got busy and made my schedule work out so I could head out with Ken. Piano lessons that were supposed to be on one of the days were thankfully already cancelled, I switched wedding flowers that were supposed to arrive during that time (for a wedding this weekend) to come to the resort instead so I could work on them there while Ken was busy, I rescheduled an orthodontist appt. for Mara, found somebody else to handle my responsibilities at our Thursday night baseball, I checked the bees, packed up and tried to get other things done that needed to be done this week. It was busy but time spent with my husband is worth tying to get a weeks work done early.

 

 Making spending time together a priority I think is a very important part of a strong marriage! How do you make it happen in your marriage?

A swarm of bees, getting the garden in and other homesteading adventures

  This time of year seems to always keep us busy in the homesteading arena. This past week was no exception.

 

  Our most exciting homesteading activity (if you consider the amount adrenaline that coursed through my body) was dealing with our bees when they decided to swarm. The bees have been stretching me a bit this year as first they dealt with chalk brood (we had quite a lot of cool, rainy days and I didn't feed them as much sugar water as I guess I should have - I had given them frames of honey that had been leftover from the beehives that I tried to overwinter - but I guess that didn't really work) and then because the one hive seemed to be struggling with the chalk brood I didn't give them a 2nd box as soon as I should have and so Saturday they decided to swarm. 

 

   I was out working in the garden on Saturday morning when Jonathan (who had elected to work in the kitchen rather than in the garden) came running out saying that the bees were swarming. I have had false alarms from him before on a hot day when the bees like to hang out on the front of their hive so I tried not to get to excited. However when I went up to check it out sure enough the bees had indeed swarmed and were hanging out on a nearby tree.

 

 For those that don't know what swarming means: Swarming happens when a bee colony decides that they don't have enough space for everybody so they start working to produce a new queen and then the old queen and approximately half of the workers all take off to look for a new place to live. They leave the hive and then find someplace to hang out for a bit while they send scouts out to look for their new home. The picture above shows them hanging out on a branch. They cluster together to keep the queen safe and warm.

 

  I didn't know exactly how I should deal with the situation though I had read about it at other times so I had a bit of an idea. I decided the best plan would be to call an experienced bee keeper that I know to see what his recommendation would be. After I described the situation he suggested that I put down a newspaper across the top of the brood box that they had just left and spray it with sugar water and then put a new box on top of that. He said to take out some of the middle frames and then to cut of the branch they were hanging on and carry it over to the hive and brush them inside the hive and then replace the middle frames and put the lid on and leave them alone for 4 days.

 

   The newspaper would help them to be near the other bees that had stayed behind but not right with them. Since they had decided to separate and were rearing another queen if I would have put them in directly with them they might have started hurting each other or just left again. With the newspaper they are temporarily trapped up in the upper box until they chew through and hopefully be the time they chew through they will be amiable again and realize they now have plenty of room and stay happily (and they will probably get rid of the queen cell that they were caring for). I am hoping and praying that it works!!

Mara and I ready to capture the swarm - my photographers failed to take pictures when we were actually doing it. :-)

 When I started to saw the branch off it wiggled the branch so that some of the cluster of bees fell off. I decided that wasn't really going to work. So I decided to bring the brood box over to were they were instead. I put a piece of cardboard under it as a temporary bottom and then I held it up underneath the swarm while Mara brushed them in. Then we put it on the other hive box with the newspaper in between as planned. Both Mara and I went into this operation a bit hesitantly as we realized we were going to get quite up close and personal with a lot of bees that might be agitated and realized that even with our protection we run the risk of getting stung. And we were close - I was holding the box at face level while Mara brushed them down at the box and me. But it seems that when they have swarmed they are so preoccupied with that and I guess because they don't have a home which they need to guard they didn't really seem interested in us at all. We were very thankful! I also felt very blessed that they chose to go on a branch only around 5 feet up rather than somewhere up high.

 

  We realized we missed some of the bees in the operation so I put another hive box over by where the bees had gone and later that day I went over and got that (which did now have quite a few bees in it) and also brushed a tiny little cluster that had developed into it and then added that on top of the other boxes. I am sure I made mistakes in this whole ordeal but I surely am hoping that everything will work out!

 

Saturday we finally got most of our garden planted (previously we only had peas, lettuce, spinach, radishes and some onions planted) and basically all the seedlings that I had started in. We had a really long winter this year and some pretty cool temperatures this spring. I am hoping it will get going and do good now!

 

 I am sporting a new gardening hat this year. My friend Becky who over the course of our friendship (that started when we were children) has given me many funny hats and other creative gifts sent me a new one for my birthday in December. It is a pretty fun hat because it folds up neatly so that it is flat but then pops out to the lovely bell shape. It is quite unique and gives us a good laugh.

We are using quite a bit of black tarp (we got it free from the lumberyard - it is black on one side and white with printing on the other) in our garden to help keep weeds down and keep the soil from drying out. It is pretty nice!

All the kids helped with the gardening though after a bit Jonathan requested that he be able to go do dishes and clean up the kitchen instead as he prefers that. I was willing as I like to have a clean kitchen. Megan did a lot of the watering of our little transplants.

Mara helped in many ways. In this picture she was planted beans. We are trying out some cool dry beans called Calypso this year. They are black and white and look like the yin-yang symbol.

 

 Beyond gardening we area also still working on our chicken coop and run. They arrive next week so we are going to have to get it done soon.

  We have also managed to eat something we have harvested from our property (on that day) every day this month so far. It has been a fun challenge and I hope to keep it up.

 One day this month we were able to harvest and eat a tomato that ripened on one of our indoor plants. Yeah! We have some others that are close to turning now.

 Some of the days we haven't eaten that much for our property - one day at least it was only the addition of chives to our meal but other days it was more.

 On Saturday evening the boys cooked supper over the fire outside. It ended up being quite the adventure with hot pads getting burned not to mention our fried potatoes getting rather black too. But experience is always good and you learn from it.

 That evening I picked some nettles to add to our supper. We boiled them over the fire, drained them (I drank that juice as it is supposed to be very good for you) and added butter and lemon juice and it was pretty good.

Here are what the nettles look like growing.

So that is some of our weeks adventures. What have you been doing?

 

Excellent Encouragement from Colossians 3

I was reading in Colossians 3 this morning for my time in the Word and there is so much good instruction and encouragement in it I wanted to find the time to read through it again today. So I decided I would share some of the verses that are really speaking to me with you. (And I highly recommend taking the time to read the whole chapter!)

Here is a section that I really want to keep to the forefront of my mind this week:

  "So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity." Col. 3:12-14

 That verse seems to be tailor written for young mothers (and everybody else too I realize but I am looking at it through my eyes of a mother with children), the encouragement to be compassionate, kind, humble, gentle and patient is so very important as we raise our children! I so often stumble in these areas but my goal and focus is to learn to be like Christ in this way. I hope you are seeking to grow in this area as well.

There are so many good verses to share from this chapter but I'll try and keep this post moderately short. I do however want to share a couple of "Whatever you do" verses:

 "Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father." Col. 3:17

"Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord, rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance, It is the Lord Christ who you serve." Col. 3:23 &24

Dealing with to much stuff

Hello again!
It has been a quiet week here on the blog again. As usual, quiet weeks on the blog generally mean that it isn't so calm and quiet here in real life. It has been a good week, just full.

 On Tuesday we started our homemakers group up again for the summer. We are meeting weekly in June, July and August. This first week was a kind of introductory one and the friend and I who are leading decided to have a discussion time on Simplicity or Living Purposefully. That is something I have been thinking on a working towards for a long time but it has become something I feel even more passionate about in this last year.

  More journey towards living more purposefully/simply is a work in progress but I do feel that I am making progress.  My goals are to cut out those things (whether physical items or things that take my time) that don't help me in me in my walk with God and to focus on Him and the things that help my walk with Him.

  I have felt led to have less stuff in our lives which is why I made the choice not to buy anything this year other than what we need (food, gas and a few things like toilet paper mostly) and a few other selected items (like a water purifier and other things that we are trying to have so that we can be prepared for possible emergencies) and instead put money into an emergency fund.

This week to help in our quest to have less stuff we held a garage sale. A portion of the money that we made from it went to help buy a good bike for Jonathan. (Good bikes for the whole family is one of those things that we like to have for fun and recreation but also something that we use for transportation to help use less gas. It was an item that I put under the being prepared category.)

   The garage sale kept us pretty busy much of this week as we were going through stuff, setting up, running it and then putting everything back to rights afterwards. I had talked to a friend who is knowledgeable about running garage sales and her advice was to have it on Thursday and Friday and that close to the first of the month was the best time. She also advised having nice signs. I think I could have done better in the sign category but we followed her advise on the other items and I think it was good. The sale went well and we made more than I expected. What a blessing! Along with the money that Jonathan had already we had more than enough to get him a good (not cheap) bike.

   Here are some of the principles that are helping me (I am still working at it!) get rid of clutter:

• Realizing that we can still remember a person or an event just fine even if we get rid of an item that came from them/that time. I struggle with sentimentality about stuff. It is fine to keep something that I really enjoy and use but to keep something that is basically useless to me just because it came from someone special is silly.
• Realizing that I can make things do double/triple duty if necessary. I didn't need that plastic cake stand (that had been given to me and I never ever used) because if I ever need a stand for a cake I can put a (pretty)platter on some sort of platform (like a big vase or some wood chunks) and it would look nicer than a plastic stand anyway. This applies in so many areas!
• Realizing that not all clothes look good on me and since I don't need them, why am I keeping them??!
• Realizing that just because I enjoyed a book (magazine, whatever) once doesn't mean it is the type that I want to read often or even have available for everybody I know to read. Some books just aren't worth keeping around to take up shelf space. In my opinion many books are very worth shelf space - we have tons of books and I love that - but not all are.
• Setting some "rules" that if things don't fit in the space that is available for it then something needs to go.
• Working gently and patiently with my children to help them see what they really want to have and enjoy and what is just making their life more difficult because it makes it harder for them to keep their room neat and tidy.
• Being willing to listen to my family about what they want to get rid of and not make them keep things for silly reasons. I have been known to have a child keep a shirt that they didn't like just because I did and I thought they might need it to go with a certain skirt but instead it simply stayed in their drawer for months making it overfull. There have been other stories like that in my life.

There are so many other silly reasons that I have kept things and I am learning to have a little less and truly enjoy that. I am striving to only have what I find either useful or beautiful. I do still try to be prepared for most situations but I am beginning to realize that it takes a lot less to be prepared for most things than sometimes we might think. Sometimes when I have that being prepared mindset and have trouble letting go of things we don't use I have learned to think about what they had 100 years ago (most likely not whatever thing that I am dealing with) and they generally lived just fine without it.

Do you struggle with dealing with stuff? What are your methods? 

Enjoying Wild Foods

Morel mushrooms

 The time of year has arrived when we are again pursuing a favorite hobby of ours - Foraging for wild foods. There is something so very fun and satisfying about going on a walk in the woods or lawn and coming back with something that you didn't plant and tend but yet you can eat and enjoy.

  Mara has really been reading up on this (I got her a new identification manual for Christmas and she has read and absorbed it very well) and so she has done the most gathering so far this year. We think it would be fun if we could manage to eat something from our property (whether wild or planted) every day this summer. We have a good start already - now just to keep it up!

 Here is some of what we have been gathering and eating....

Morel mushrooms and strawberry leaves. The strawberry leaves were used for tea (along with raspberry leaf and wild hyssop) and the Morel mushrooms we used to make a delicious sauce/gravy for over steak.

Ken's comment was that was the only way he wants to eat steak now. I am afraid we won't have a big enough supply of mushrooms but it certainly was good!

 The girls have also collected a bunch of fiddleheads from the bracken ferns. These are a little time consuming as you have to clean the fuzzies off (Mara has done that for us) and then you boil them for some time with changes of water.

 The book said to use them like asparagus so I made creamed fiddleheads and morel over toast. It was pretty yummy but the flavor wasn't that strong.

  Yesterday we used fiddleheads in a Chinese pork dumpling. We also put dandelion flowers in that dumpling along with chives from our garden. It was quite yummy.

Our earliest wild foods that we ate this spring were dandelion greens. Mara went to a lot of work to collect them and the crowns a couple of different times. The reward didn't seem quite worth the effort as we didn't find them overly yummy but it was okay and it was fun to eat the wild foods. We added them to macaroni salad one day (which I then topped with homemade goat cheese) and then we sautéed them another day to but in a casserole.

  We have been drinking a variety of wild teas and Mara did also collect little cattail stems one day for us to eat.

  We feel like we have gotten a good start on wild food eating and we are looking forward for the rest of the summer!

   Do you collect or eat wild foods? I would love to hear your stories!

 I am linking up with  The Prairie Homestead  and New Life on a Homestead.

and Clever Chicks Blog Hop