a number of things

Hello?

Well, I seem to have forgotten all about this little corner of the interwebs. :) Life has been full and busy. You will have to excuse the not-so-crisp pics in this post as they are from Instagram, a little community that I am enjoying much more than I ever thought I would.

We are coming to the end of an unusually cool spring down here in the deep south, that has the bees a little behind last year in their honey production, but doing well.We have started participating in our local farmer's market, which has been so much fun! One of our ducks hatched out 2 ducklings of her own and two more are setting on eggs. I caught a swarm the day after Easter and brought my hive total up to three. :) And so much more!

A very happy spring & summer to you all!

June morning tablescape

 

first honey

I cannot tell you how thrilling this is for us - harvesting our very own honey. It has been a very productive spring / summer for the bees and I am thinking there will be a bit more of this to come. We only took off one 8-frame box, from one hive. It was the third honey super they had totally filled, so we decided it was time for a taste.

I used a bee escape between the box of honey we planned to take and the rest of the hive. When Noah and I took the box off 24 hours later, there were only about a dozen or so bees left in it. I'll admit that I was pleasantly surprised with what a peaceful and easy process it was for both us and the bees. We used the crush-and-strain method of extracting with one of these handy buckets.

 

clover chains

Happy spring!

 

wordless Wednesday :: and now she is 3

 

2012 Calendar

Well, here it is! Anna finished her drawings 2 days ago, and I completed the pages and layout last night. Nothing like a good self imposed deadline to make you move. :)

We really do hope you like it. You can click here to download and print it out (or click any of the photos above).  Here is the wording from the back cover of the calendar:

 

This little calendar was a mother / daughter collaboration between myself (Alice) and my 14 year old daughter, Anna. We have been learning about different herbs and their uses over the last couple of years and this project was a great way to further that learning.

The pen and ink drawings were all done by Anna (and then colored digitally), while I did the calendar pages, layout etc. We hope you will enjoy learning a bit more about these common, yet useful herbs along with us. Please visit your local library or the internet to explore the world of herbs further. It is fascinating!

 

* Edited to add:  Anna now has a poster featuring these herbs available for purchase in my Etsy shop. :)

 

Anna & her art

As you might have noticed, Anna has her own style. She loves to sew, craft & create as well as draw. Almost, I dare say, more than I did at her age (which is saying quite a bit). I love her simple, relaxed style and the way she loves to experiment.

So when she volunteered to draw all of the pictures for a 2012 freebie calendar, I took her up on it very quickly (before she had much time to think about doing 12 new drawings).

We decided on a theme of herbs (which is a great interest of ours), and she went to work. Anna has done some watercolors, but is not really fond of them. Her preferred medium is pen and ink, so for a bit of added color I showed her how to "paint" her drawings digitally after we scanned them in.

So far she has 8 herbs completed, and 4 to go. I am doing the layout, calendar pages, moon phases, etc. and we have great hopes to be finished by the first of December. We hope you will like them!

my helper

Lilly is one of those children that kind hearted people stare at, smile and say, "Wow. She sure is a busy one!" Ha.

The more I think about it, the more "busy" really does seem to be the right word (and so much nicer than a few others that might apply). She gets into positively everything, and keeping her "busy" is sometimes the only way we can all stay remotely sane.

This morning she helped me make a couple of the herbal infusions that we like to keep in the fridge. (We basically use this method.)

We made a nettle & rose-hip blend (with a pinch of peppermint) and a lemon balm, elderflower & rose-hip concoction which tastes wonderful and is a great immunity booster.

Lilly has always liked teas of all sorts. Now that I think about it, she has somewhat strange tastes for a two year old. Two of her favorite things are salad and salsa. Go figure.

She has a hard time waiting the four long hours that we let these steep... She asks every few minutes if "the tea is ready now?" It helps that nap time will fall during that four hour stretch. :)
 
(Linked to Simple Lives Thursday.)

 

a little garden notebook

I may not have the time to draw and paint 12 new calendar images right now, but I certainly found the time to make up a quick, earthy little illustration to encourage my favorite young gardeners. You see, we are in the midst of the fall planting down here in the deep south, and Collin and Rose are quite serious about their own personal garden space.

So kid sized garden notebooks (or garden journals, if you prefer) were in order for the careful recording of planting dates, varieties, garden maps, etc. I thought there might be other kids (and grown-ups!) out there with their own gardening projects, so I made up a PDF with two little notebook covers each as a little autumn gift for you.

Enjoy!

Click here to download the garden notebook covers.

** One quick tip: To get the full image, make sure to select Borderless Printing from your Print Setup box. Complete instructions are on page 2 of the PDF.

 

Lilly paints

Lilly, now that she is a big 2.5 years old, has become quite serious about her painting.

 

Each color is thoughtfully chosen (and thoroughly mixed with its neighbor) and then carefully placed.

 

She pauses occasionally, to study her composition.

And then dives right back in again. :)

 

the doll's Christmas

In the last post I mentioned that I was stocking a "shop" for the dolls. This post gives a bit more info for those who asked (and those who didn't). Now as much as I would like our "doll's Christmas" to resemble Tasha Tudor's, it does not. It is entirely of the kids (the 4 middle ones) creation and has become something of a mini tradition as this is the third year they have celebrated it.

The kids (the 4 middle ones again) collect Breyer horses (mostly from my old 70's-80's collection) and each has one or two "riders" to ride and care for those horses. The boys have the cowboys and such, and the girls have well, the girls. They came up with the idea a while back for the dolls (the boys don't care for that word, they prefer the term "Breyers") to pull names among themselves and give gifts at the "Breyer Christmas party".

Last year I noticed that this gift giving involved a whole lot of Mama being called upon to make in mini at the last possible moment. This year, I decided to head off those requests and open a "doll shop" for the Breyers to make their holiday purchases.

The inventory included festive garland made from catalog pages, blank notebooks, bottle caps, a mini zine on coyotes (important info for those cowboys, you know), items constructed from the printable minis site, various mini wood items and even a Breyer sized haversack made out of felt. The "shop" itself is in a plastic sectioned box that I found in the boy's room.

I even made a currency... doll dollars. Each child got $20 to begin with but could earn more by trading re-salable minis (such as nice walnut shell halves and mini pencils made from toothpicks) back to the store.

So far it has been great fun, the kids are really into it and the doll's trees have many surprises tucked under them in anticipation of the big day. :)

 

good busy

These days are busy ones indeed, but oh such a good kind of busy. The tree went up yesterday and tonight is our little St. Lucy's Day celebration.

 

Everyone is getting into the season with secrets and surprises being plotted and planned.

A little shop for the dolls is being stocked, because they must have somewhere to buy their gifts.

And gifts are being finished up and packaged for mailing or giving. Tomorrow there are candies to be made and parties to plan. Oh yes, it is a very good kind of busy.

Hope you are having a lovely Advent with plots and plans of your own!