Summer Fruit

Last week the home ed. group went strawberry picking and afterwards we all made jam together! We had about five jars each to take home, here are our last two!

In the garden the gooseberries were ready.





Now I need suggestions as to what to do with them! Going to put them in the freezer for now I think as I am not sure and don't want them to get squishy before I decide!

Wonderful suprise in the garden - as I was kneeling picking the little sour green fruits I happened to look up and there right above my head, unoticed until now - was a huge cherry tree! That's what happens when you move into a house in mid-winter and have no idea what the skeleton trees will turn out to be. In high excitment I remembered seeing another blossom tree this Spring and so went off to search and found a lovely tree ripening up with plums! Bonus tiny raspberry bush found at my feet as I squuezed the little plums, deciding that they really were plums and not something unusual (say, quince?). Very exciting fruit day can't wait to see what I find next. The Wild behind the woodshed looks to be a huge 40ft tangle of blackberry bushes. Last year I made about three bottles of blackberry and honey syrup but this year if we are still around I will make masses and masses of the stuff ready for Christmas gifts.

While I gloried in fruit, and what I would do with it all (where will I get a fruit picking ladder for the cherries?) the boys made pirate jewellery, painted wet on wet and gazed at their new fish (or in Isaac's case - get excited and make up songs about fish!)






See the play fruit on the table? I made it from felt - copied cheaply from some I saw in town last week. I went back to the shop twice to examine it in between bouts of sewing. The fish appears to find it as tasty as the elephants and dolls in the kitchen.

Food and un-food

I have a friend who has huge battles with her son and food. He is turning into a 'fussy eater' she tells me. I was astounded when I heard this. I have seen them together at mealtimes and this is what happens: 'T, here you need to eat this now or your little tummy will be hungry later and you won't be able to play!... sit here now and have some...come on now, sit right here, Now! Come on...' T answers something like - 'but I don't like it!' or 'I am not hungry now!' After a while the mother takes him aside so I can't hear and whispers furiously in his ear. He returns to the table or picnic quick as a whip and stuffs the food in his mouth hardly tasting, hardly chewing until it's enough to satisfy his mother and then runs off. I have said in a jokey way we could save it for later for him? Or maybe he could have something else? Could he eat later inthe car home? But my smiley comments are not well recieved at all, because it seems I am trying to add more conflict for the mother, more trouble for her. It is horrifying to me. Partly because I remember doing this as a child. But then more and more often as I grew up I would refuse utterly at my father's request to eat what he told me I must, all of the guilt trips about starving children in Africa ('but how is my eating this going to help them?') or threats about no cookies or pocket money or no playing with friends later could induce me to eat the offending item (usually vegetables). But then what happened when I became older, an adult. What was my relationship with this 'food'? Well for a start I could not view it as fuel, something I needed in order to function to have when I wanted or needed (too long at it been only at specific times 'dinner' 'lunch') and too often had it been itmes not of my choosing. I could not view it as a substance I needed in order to survive. It was an ugly thing, or a wonderful thing, a life all on it's own that I had no hope of understanding. Too long had it been a place of battle. I witheld food from myself as a teen, surviving for days on one apple and two crackers per day. Years later I ate chocolate in large amounts to get a feel good feeling. I ate when it was meal time, not because my body dicated - hunger.

When I lived without my parents I finally got to choose my portion size! What a revelation! How often do parents dollop out the food for their children and then nag them to finish! The child didn't even get to choose how much to start out with! How fair is that! Did the child even get to say I am hungry, lets eat! Or were they called away from something wonderful when they were not ready to sit and eat - did they shovel that food in to get back quick to what they were previously doing? Do children who are taught to eat outside of their own bodies; meaning never getting to tune in to when they are hungry, never getting to choose the amount of food they eat - someone else always choosing for them. Later in life will they eat out of habbit rather than hunger? Of course! They are already being trained to do that from a very young age. Hunger signals are utterly ignored and indeed quelled and one eats at some arbitary signal from someone else. And we wonder at the increase in obesity in adults! The food disorders, the strange love/hate relationships going on with so called 'bad' unhealthful food. The guilt eating.

I have spent a few years now changing my attitude to food. It hasn't happened fully yet. But now I eat when I am hungry, regardless of what the clock tells me. I let my children fix themsleves food, we have open shelves stacked with snack bars, breadsticks, fruit, they know how to get yogurt from the fridge and how to make toast. I never ever ask them to finish what is on their plates. If they don't like something they can get something else. They are free to buy a Milky Way now if they want one. It's the least I can do. I hope this does not sound bitter, or angry because I am really am not any more. Mostly now I am interested about how my eating habbits came about, the influences. Seeing now that my children eat all of their food under my care and *knowing* that my attitude is everything is pushing me on to take more care, be freer. It seems that it is one thing to have these inner conflicts with food but it is a terrible thing to be passing them on to little people who rely on us to feed and nourish them. With love. Not hate. We are passing on so much more than our theories about which foods are and are not healthy. We are teaching them (without realising?) ways in which it is possible to live. For without food we cannot!

Paisley

A lovely friend managed to part with some snippets of her favourite fabric, she said it was hard to cut me a strip but she couldn't think who else would cherish it like she does! It's the sort of fabric you can just gaze at. Pale duck egg blue, mint green, fushia and pale pinks, swirly and so so girly and pretty. This particular fabirc was designed by Cath Kidston for Ikea some years ago and is difficult to get hold of - I check out ebay regularly for this stuff and it sells for crazy prices. Today I used up two thirds of the strip on two little baby/child items: a dog with some snippets of cotton velvour ears left over from other doll making days, blanket stitched and stuffed with organic sheep fleece. And the doll; also stuffed with fleece and with a cotton blue velvour hood.

Here is the fabric:


And what I made with bits of it:





I also have a metre length piece of this that I am relishing looking at and drawing out the deciding on what to do with it.....

singing in the rain

my mother, visiting us, and tending the fire in the rain!




More fire fun with one of my brothers








Isaac having a quiet moment, playing games on my phone (just discovered by him - not me, I didn't know they were there!):



Isaac the 'show jumper' getting ready for his lesson on 'Bubbles' his favourite pony:





I'm showing this picture because my newly made curtains are in the background! I can make curtains! They were easy peasy and the fabric wonderful to hold. In the foreground; Felix playing one of his many solo games of Connect Four

The last few days, in photographs.

A secret cave, reached only by boat and much talked about!

Watching for seals...





There they are!




Amazing dog like creatures transformed by full moon and too long at sea into 'silkies' : magical woman-like creatures to lure fishermen overboard.

Necklace making in PJ's. A good start to the weekend!




Check it out Mummy - nice huh? :)



Night time sewing a piece of vinatge fabric into cushions and bags and snipets of little wallets for holding things.





An old outgrown vintage design shirt waiting to be turned into something.... a washbag?



My favourite shelf in the sitting room. Photographed.. just because!




Isaac intrigued by Don's drawing.



We have spent two days at the Red Kite centre. Amazing place. Two grubby worn out boys flopping asleep after hours of walking and playing and watching birds swoop down for meat. We took a walk with a woman who helped us identify the local trees and plants and the boys played in dens made by some teenagers in 'Forest School'. The friendliest teens I have ever met. No photographs though as I had Fe in the sling and a heavy backpack to cart and a big lens camera was just the icing on the cake I could do without. The most beautiful valley though. Just stunning in that quiet still way of Welsh hills. Spoke to a woman on holiday with her dd and when she heard I actually lived right here! Well I felt so lucky. But I do in any case. Daily. Boys and I on our own during the week right now while Don works away. Strange and quiet at night. Distant dogs barking take on a more menacing tone and the calling of owls and bleating of sheep are louder than I have ever noticed. The trees are so noisy! Really, like the sound of a rustling busy motorway. Who ever thought the country was silent? Planting up my echinacea this week but will not flower until next year and roots not be harvested for many moons after. Calendula, chamomile, parsley, spring onions, nasturtiums, er... 'hemp' and lavender growing wildly, looking forward to harvesting them but enjoying their growing period imensely. Baby hares scattered through our garden like raisins at the moment, drawn from the fields to sample the millions of buttercups. One little brave thing, daily, creeps closer to the house and a particularly large mass of yellow flowers. He could sit easily in the palm of my hand, the boys, breathless, watch with wide eyes.

Date and coconut squares

Couldn't resit another foodie post. On a sugar-free kick right now, but needed something sweet to satisfy that occasional craving.



Ingredients:
Base
Dates about 250g
Coconut cream, one 200g block

Topping
Coconut cream, little sq. inch
coconut oil (organic cold pressed sort)
Cocoa or carob powder
tiny dash of maple syrup or runny honey or brwn rice syrup etc
couple of table spoons of desicated coconut

Melt the coconut cream on lowest heat, stiring all the while as it very easily burns. Put dates and then melted coconut cream into blender and blitz until well combined and mushy (remember to stone the dates). Turn into little inch high baking tray and pat down flat with spoon or hands. For the topping, melt the coconut cream and coconut oil together in a small pan, stiring all the while again. When melted turn off heat and add cocoa powder, desicated coconut, dash of syrup and what ever else you fancy (I also used flaked almonds). Pour and spoon over the base and refrigerate. We lasted half and hour before tasting and the topping had only just set, but overnight is great, today they are lovely and thick and chewy. Big hit in this house!

See that plate? I made that too :)

Strawberries

Our first strawberries this year (or the few that were left over from our four punnets!)

Organic and local to boot. Delicious.

Enjoyed with balsamic, and later with lashingings of tangy yogurt and then finally just as they are.


Another fluffy yet delicious post :)

Boys Only!

Knitted nappy cover/soaker: It took me three attempts to get the rolled edge leg cuffs right, but the rest was easy-peasy. It's a Noro yarn in a wool silk mix. I'd like to try a pair of longies next, my SIL's baby is due in winter and she loves cloth but I don't know if she has used wool soakers much, she can try these!

I get a Suma order once a month. If you don't know, Suma is a big wholefood supplier and supplies health food shops and farm shops with everything from orgainc grains to tomato ketchup to chocolate to Weleda soap. If you live rurally enough you can make an order, I get together with a couple of friends. The thing is though, everything comes in bulk, so say 30 toilet rolls, or a giant box of six olive oil soaps... as you can see the packs of kitchen and toilet rolls are played with more than toys in here right now. Isaac and Felix have made sofas, houses, walls, toilets (!) and so many other things. Yesterday they sectioned off the laundry room and told me it was 'boys only'. Don said, oh great that means me! Certainly not! You are a man, Isaac told him sternly.





Felix the pastry chef. He sees a rolling pin and he is a whirling, pizza throwing, dervish of a worker scattering snippets and shape cutters like a mad man. I am squished to one side to make the humble chicken pie dinner, slightly in awe of his pin wielding.

In clover

Finished!

Felix in his knitted sweater (Regia 6ply (DK) sock wool in Forest)



It's raining this week. I cancelled the willow weaving woman who was coming over to my garden to show a bunch of us home ed. folk how to use willow... baskets, fences, animals. Date moved to next week instead (fingers crossed for a bit of sun).

Doing a daily walk despite damp and drizzle (sometime with boys sometimes not) of about 3 miles, my speedy-but not-quite-jogging walk. It's such a delight let me tell ya - almost the entire walk is down little lanes banked with foxglove, red clover, comfrey, and masses of vivid lime green ferns. The other day we took backpacks and snacks and little notepads and a native plant book and Isaac identified and I drew comfrey. Not one car did we see on our journey, quite fantastic. We could run and skip and lark about in the middle of the road because no one ever seems to come along. Wonderful! And then, crossing a little river over a stone bridge and we hear intense baaa-ing. Three old Welsh farmer men had cordened off a couple of pens at the side of a field and were in the process of getting the sheep to run through a chute, the lambs they forked off one way and the Mama's another. Then they weighed each lamb, squirted some worming medicine (we asked) into their mouths and some had tags punched through their ears, some had a red mark sprayed on their backs. It looked to be related to their weight but these guys were not forthcomming with their conversation as obviously (to them but mystifying to me) we were English, they Welsh, so it was not important for them to explain stuff. Actually not so mystyfying. Only the non local and non Welsh would have time to be out walking just for fun. Makes me smile. And them too probably, but for different reasons. One of the old guys, the most curious, sharper chin, slightly snazzier flat cap asked me (in English) where we lived. I said the name of the house and he nodded as if yes, that explains everything, no need of further conversation. We live in a most modestly named house which when translated literally means 'lots of land'. But of course it's not ours in any case (we rent) and was sold off in pieces bit by bit by the previous owner a ninety year old woman who lived here her whole life. I sometimes walk around touching things, squinting and trying to imagine the life she lived. Pretty hard to do to be honest, the pig shed now stores bikes and paddling pools and other modernn bric-brac. The long pantry/larder/cold stoere and cheese making room is our kitchen with mod-cons and her old kitchen is our sitting room and in place of giant range, stands little pretty woodburner. To be honest, romantic notions aside for a mini-second, I think I prefer the centrally heated version of this house/life, this house can get unbearably cold.





So we watched the sheep for ages. Really there were a lot of lambs. Then for the rest of the walk home Isaac and I told story after story about a special black lamb who liked to eat red clover and who was friends with a unicorn... and so they went on, getting more and more fantastic until a white chimmney stack spouting a delicate plume of smoke signaled home. Felix? He LOVES stories of any description, from books, made-up ones, with fancy dress, on a tape in the car... he is mesmorised and then acts them out. So he loved the sheep tales. Sheep and red clover featured highly so far this week for us. I picked masses and masses of just ripe flower heads and have spread them out to dry at one end of the kitchen. Can't decide whether to dry them out for infusions or look into making an oil... red clover is reputedly amzing for enhancing fertility amongst other things, is high in protein and absorbable calcium and magnesium, has a high mineral content, alkalinises the body and regulates hormones. It is very tasty with equal parts nettle. I alternate this on a regular basis with raspberry leaf, usually I order it all from Neals Yard Remedies, but hey if it's right here I ought to try picking and drying it myself.

When it rains too hard for little boys to want to go out (even with exciting full body waterproof's on hand) then jigsaw days are in order. Jigsaw days which apparently require chocolate spread on toast to make them just right.

Flowers versus Spiderman

This weekend:

Isaac was really into making these, remember them?




Also the drawing of rocket ships zooming off into space featured highly.



Felix mastered What cards and so naturally wanted to play as many times as possible. They are the same set of cards my sister and I played with, so I was happy to oblige him.



Isaac went shopping with Don and decided to buy me flowers, butter, sausages and a spiderman figure I could share with him. I like the flowers best! The Spiderman came a close second though and I have very much enjoyed my few alloted minutes playing with him. Thanks Isi!

Collecting treasure

Windy, wild and grey day here.

A few days ago the boys ran nymph like into the sea here naked, while today we needed wool hats to keep the chill from our ears.

Treasure collecting, a daily occurence:



We walked far, with the wind behind us, pushing us on. But the walk back was powerful and we had to sing marching songs to keep us going such as The Grand Old Duke of York. Isaac and I dithered collecting driftwood, our arms stacked and when we reached the car it was so warm and comfortable, in the best way - the way cars can be after a cold long walk.



This morning we picked a huge basket load of nettles and made nettle soup - just like this. Thanks for the inspiring recipe! Our garden is so chock full of nettles that we could feed an army with nettle soup, but fortunatly for our fingers soup enough for four was all that was needed.

The lambs in the field behind us have grown and still scarper when we try to coo and get close.



Fabulous for me to walk the lane and see the hedgerows blooming. I walked slower than the boys today, my eyes greedy for green life - or maybe I was just collecting treasure!





And just because I am on a roll here this week posting garden photos, Felix wanted his hair tied up and specifically asks me to take photos of him on his swing, here you go Fe - see yourself now?



Grandma this one is for you - Isaac LOVES his new jumper - you are a super knitter :)