Happy Spring!

 An outing to see a sweet puppet play, "The Winning of Kwelanga."

 Nathan continues to amaze me with his artistic abilities. This is his pencil sketch of Leonardo da Vinci, which he drew for a 7th grade block.

 The amazing Mama who takes care of Nuriel while I work just had a baby, so there's been lots of babywearing-imitation happening at our house. 

 I had a fabulous 38th birthday. I've been dreaming about Venice, so Nathan drew this picture inside the birthday card he made for me. Noah got me banana pudding (yummy!) and Nuriel kept insisting that it was HER birthday. :-)

Nuriel planted some Easter grass on Palm Sunday morning...

 ... that evening we got some unexpected snow, which resulted in a fabulous snow day that Monday.

 By Wednesday the grass was already this tall!

 Using some pea shoot sprouts and coffee & vinegar, I dyed some of these eggs with my students.

 A visit to a local Alpaca fiber festival with these sweet little one, just a week old.

 A fabulous creation by my friend Mindi - in exchange for a set of rainbow bunnies for her daughter. I love this dress!

 No chocolate bunnies were devoured in our house this year, but the Easter bunny did bring a chocolate carrot with the bunnies I had sewn from felt for Nuriel. {She loves her chocolate.}

Mother Earth

How do you imagine Mother Earth? Is she old & wise? Young & adorned with flowers? I have different images of her in my head. They change with the season, with stories I hear & tell. 

To me she is such an archetypal figure on the Nature Table. I've been experimenting with creating the different Mother Earths of my imagination.

This one is about 10" tall. Her body is needle-felted. She wears a hooded cape knitted on teeny-tiny needles using some Koigu yarn. Her apron has a simple grass - sky - sunflower scene needle-felted onto a piece of wet-felted wool-mohair felt. She is wise & old. Her hair is thus gray, with a lil' bun in the back. 

I love how she turned out. How about you? Well, guess what. I'm not keeping her. This is a bit of a teaser. :-) On Monday I'll tell you more about all of that. Do check back in!

In the meantime, if you have a link to the Mother Earth of your imagination, the Mother Earth who lives on your Nature Table maybe, please do share a link in the comment section. I'd love to see her!

Spring Weekend

Finally! Spring!

Even the cats are enjoying the sunshine!

I went crazy with the woodburning tool this weekend. I buy a lot in bulk & then store in jars. I'm loving the lil' tags from Tonya.

More woodburning. Nathan's peppermint.

And still more.We just planted this Rosemary bush. I love Rosemary. I hope it will grow & grow.

My sage is back. I couldn't be more happy! It's very special, you know... I'm afraid it will not come back one year. I'd be devastated. I'm glad this is not the year.

We started some seeds, although - in retrospect - the egg carton thing might not work? Starting off with tomatoes, mostly. (Sausage Tomato. We're not trying to plant sausages.)

I baked this yesterday morning. Nunu was up very early, so I decided to use the early morning time wisely. I'm so totally not a morning person!

Blueberry-Banana Bread

I kept telling the children to let me take a picture so that I can blog about it first. They insisted they only had a nibble. I must say, it was very good banana-blueberry bread. I freeze bananas when they are brown & then bake banana bread when there's enough in the freezer.

1-1/2 c. flour

2 tbsp. sugar (The recipe called for 1/4 c. I wanted to omit it altogether, but I was adding a cup of blueberries, and I don't know my baking chemistry, so I decided to add a little bit.)

1/2 c. pecans

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. baking soda

***

1-1/3 c. banana mush

2 eggs

1/2 c. maple syrup (It's gotta be the real deal!)

1/3 c. melted butter
1 c. blueberries

***

Mix it all up. Bake at 350 F for 60 minutes. I baked it in a pie dish. It was obviously good.

This Woolrae was a gift from the lovely Rachel. I love the colors! Such a joy to knit. I making Nunu a Gnome Pixie Cape. The pattern is here. Of course, I was being an idiot and totally screwed up the gauge, because I *never* do a gauge swatch. I was at the neck-decrease when I realized it would be way too small in the autumn. So, I'm frogging. I suppose it will just give me more time to enjoy knitting with this awesome yarn. :-)

(I decided to delete yesterday's blog post after receiving a very strange comment. And I haven't forgotten about the "Grains" posts!)

Friday

I've "met" many wonderful people through Kiwi Mummy Blogs. What an abundance of creative, witty, funny, honest & the-list-goes-on blogs there. I was happy to make a small contribution by donating two sets of knitted hens & chicks to the weekly giveaway there. Spring is coming - sooner or later. Better get ready with some spring chicks. Go have a look if you want.

Today was...

... a perfect day for strawberry picking. And they taste even better with a wee bit of sugar & some fresh whipped cream.

That Burger...

... I was talking about was so good! Really. Yum.

Mother's Day

The boys had baked a yummy banana-walnut-pecan bread last night. They fixed me some tea with it this morning & made me sweet cards. I'm taking my class strawberry picking this Thursday, so off we went to scoop out the spot in the country...

Reminds me of growing up in a tiny village in Franconia.

Beautiful rosebushes.

Berries picked.

Being lazy in the sun.

More pretty blooms.

Two pretty stems for home.

I'm craving a good ole American beef burger for dinner. The children have kindly offered to prepare one (from organic beef may I add). We'll have dinner out on the porch. The weather is gorgeous. And the yummy berries with whip cream will be yummy, too. I'm sure.

In the U.S. Mother's Day is a $14 billion dollar industry. You really don't have to spend money to have a nice day, though. It's been a nice Sunday so far. I enjoyed the simple day with my boys.

I hope my own mother had a lovely day, too. Her last words to me a few weeks ago were, "Do what you want." I suppose I wasn't as receptive as she had wished to her suggestion that I was mentally ill for having this baby. I've respected her wish to have us out of her life. She was a single Mom for a period of my childhood. I'm sure things weren't always easy for her. I appreciate the sacrifices she made for me on her journey.

It takes a village to raise a child. Happy Mother's Day to all of you who do their part in raising the children "of our village."

P.S. Noah will be going on a balloon-ride with his class tomorrow. Drop-off is at 5:45 a.m. (Yawn!) Nathan & I will get to see him lift off into the heights of the sky. I think I'm more nervous than he is.

Mayday

I've been a-wandering all this night and the best part of the day. And when I come back home again, I will bring you a branch of May...

Maypole.

Toy treasures.

Pretty roses for Mayday Queen crowns.

More pretty blooms.

Mayfaire Menu. Yummy. The spinach pies were so good.
Nate & I helped prepare some yesterday using a recipe from the Moosewood cookbook. (I did a search and was surprised to find a copy here, just click on the recipe tab.)

Noah as one of the Robin Hood's Merry Men in the 6-8th grade play.

... A branch of May I will bring you here and at your door I'll stand. It's nothing but a sprout, but it's well budded out by the works of God's own hand.
~~~
It's a hot 90F/33C day. Nathan and a friend are strumming the guitar. Noah is resting with a headache from the heat. I'm going to fix some iced tea, put my feet up & get some knitting done.
Happy Day!

For Easter Mornin'

While Noah was taking a 5-hours nap (thank goodness he feels a bit better now) & Nathan was getting a big chunk of his Platypus report done, I was felting. Seeing my students' finished chickens yesterday inspired me to finish the batch I had started a while ago for our family. They are just too cute. What a simple & sweet project. Off now to a dinner invite!

S p r i n g... In 2nd Grade

I posted about these as a WIP Wednesday a while ago. I haven't finished my set yet, but my 2nd graders have finished theirs - as you can see. They are so excited about these egg covers. Those who have siblings are planning to hide chocolate eggs underneath - away from brothers & sisters. Some struggled completing one, so the fairies will have to come this weekend and help a bit. Others finished three and are now working on lil' baby chicks along with it. I love the big, red comb on the yellow one. How fiery.

WIP Wednesday

A pilot-cap in Koigu Painter's Palette Premium Merino. I love that yarn, but hardly ever treat myself to a skein since the local yarn shop doesn't carry it.

I'm also working on a set of spring chicken egg covers. My class will do this as an Easter project. The kit is available at Peace Fleece. I love all the fun colors.

Tomorrow I will be 35. I remember how happy and optimistic I was at my birthday last year. Just such a different feeling this year...

WIP Wednesday & Trade Treasures

I'm in need for some phunky Christmas tree ornaments in the rainbow spirit, so I've been working on some felted acorn ornaments. I just poke a hole into the acorn cap using a thumb-tag, pull embroidery floss through using a small yarn-darner, and then add a few drops of hot wax to "glue" a previously wet-felted or needle-felted "egg" into them. So simple. ♥

On another note, the beautiful creations from Softearthart - The Enchanted World Of Needlefelting have arrived on my porch all the way from beautiful New Zealand. Can't wait to put the birdies in the Christmas tree & can't wait for spring now when the root children will find a place on our nature table. Another favorite of mine in the shop are the koru princesses. Thank you so much! ♥

It's not too late to sign up for the blog giveaway!

Happy Thanksgiving!