Nature Study: In Search of Spring!

With the near 70 degree weather on Thursday, we left dishes in the sink, the kitchen floor unmopped (yet again) and headed to the Tyler Arboretum in search of spring.

We picnicked:

Had time to run free and explore on our own. Do you see baby?

Miss G is currently learning about rocks in science so we brought along our magnifying glasses.

We kept baby occupied with her own set of rocks and magnifying glass.

We also looked for new flower blossoms since our last visit:

All of these flowers are featured in our Flower Fairy Book so we were able to read the poems when we got home.

The little ones took a long nap. What a great way to spend the day!

When Early March Seems Middle May

Charlotte Mason writes, "Never be within doors when you can rightly be without." With this warm weather, we've tried taking her advice. We'll see how it goes with the week of rain expected!

When Early March Seems Middle May

When country roads begin to thaw
In mottled spots of damp and dust,
And fences by the margin draw
    Along the frosty crust
Their graphic silhouettes, I say,
The Spring is coming round this way

When coughs are changed to laughs, and when
Our frowns melt into smiles of glee,

 And all our blood thaws out again
    In streams of ecstasy,
And poets wreak their roundelay,
The Spring is coming round this way.

by James Whitcombe Riley

Welcoming our first cold morning!

This was our first chilly morning--43 degrees! I know, I know, if you are from warmer climates, it sounds terrible. If you are from the wintery north that has already had snow, it sounds balmy!

For our first brisk morning, I planned a hearty, easy-to-make Baked Oatmeal. I appreciate that I can stick it in the oven, then get everyone dressed and when we arrive, a nice hot dish of oatmeal is waiting. The big kids added milk to make it more of a cereal. The baby, who especially loved it, ate it more like an oatmeal bar.

• 3 cups rolled oats (I used quick cooking oats and it was ready in 30 minutes)
  
• 1 cup brown sugar (I cut to half a cup and it was still sweet)
  
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup dried, fresh or frozen berries (we did frozen blueberries!)
  

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, mix together oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt. Beat in milk, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla extract. Stir in fruit. Spread into a 9x13 inch baking dish.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 40 minutes.  

Enjoy!

 

Apple-picking in the Fall

This past week we took the morning off from school to go Apple-Picking at Linvilla with my parents. We had so much fun! And there are so many ways to extend it into a Unit Study with science, literature, cooking, poetry, art, and math.

The Tractor ride might have been their favorite part!











We picked and picked!






















And Pop Pop collected:



















Our Favorite apple books:
The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall
How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman
The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons
The Apple Pie that Papa Baked by Lauren Thompson




Apple Stamping: From Martha

Apple Tasting: Sort, Cut, taste, and describe a variety of apples to pick your favorites. This lesson plan is very detailed!

Apple Fractions: Lesson plan

Montessori Three Part Classification Cards: The Life Cycle of the Apple Tree. I printed twice, laminated, and then cut these cards. We used them for a matching game, reading practice and learning about the life cycle of the apple tree.

The Apple Tree through the Seasons: Cards to print and color

Our Favorite Apple Recipe: Apple Brown Betty by The Pioneer Woman











For Poetry this section of the Frost poem resonated with me. The apples were so plentiful and fell to the ground so easily. It was hard to not feel guilty about leaving them behind.

For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.

from After Apple-Picking by Robert Frost

What's in season: Rhubarb

For my husband, eating rhubarb brings back fond memories of childhood. Since it is in season right now (ie. plentiful and cheap), I've picked it up at the farmer's market the last 3 weeks.

Rhubarb just looks like it should be nutritious and it is: Low in Saturated Fat, Cholesterol and Sodium and High in Dietary Fiber, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Calcium, Potassium, Manganese and Magnesium. One serving of rhubarb has 35% of your calcium.

If your interested in reading more about this tart vegetable, check out Mother Earth News and this article on its history.

"Ben Franklin is credited for bringing rhubarb seeds to the North American east
coast in 1772, yet the red stalks did not catch on until the early 1800s, when
it became a popular ingredient for pie...The term rhubarb has also come to mean
a "quarrel" or "heated discussion." This comes from theatrical direction,
believe it or not. Stage and movie directors would have actors repeat "rhubarb"
and various other phrases over and over to simulate background conversations or
mutterings of a surly crowd."

Look for stalks 12-18" long, thin, crisp (think celery). It should be dark pink to red (generally the redder, the sweeter). One pound of rhubarb equals about 3 cups diced. It's perishable so use it within 3 days or cut it up and freeze.

If your not so sure you're family will like this tart relative of the celery plant for dessert, here is an easy-peasy recipe that is sure to please. I've made this 3 times now and everyone even two picky two-year olds gobbled it up!

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crunch

INGREDIENTS
1 cup white sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 cups sliced fresh strawberries
3 cups diced rhubarb (I cut it pretty small so the pieces are soft and blend more with the strawberries. For those of you who like the tart you may want to cut them into larger chunks.)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup butter
1 cup rolled oats

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
In a large bowl, mix white sugar, 3 tablespoons flour, strawberries, and rhubarb. Place the mixture in a 9x13 inch baking dish.
Mix 1 1/2 cups flour, brown sugar, butter, and oats until crumbly. You may want to use a pastry blender for this. Crumble on top of the rhubarb and strawberry mixture.
Bake 45 minutes in the preheated oven, or until crisp and lightly browned.

(Here's a pretty strawberry-rhubarb dessert from Cooking Light with a bit less fat, but I haven't had the chance to try it yet!)

a defense of home food preservation and how to start with a bunch of little ones underfoot!

This is the time of year for good eats. Vegetables and fruit are plentiful in the garden, at the farmer's market, and on sale at the grocery store. The time of year when many of our great-grandmothers and their mothers and their mothers (the first frugal, simple, green-living mommas--thanks, Allie!) began preserving the harvest.

But then we were persuaded that this sort of work was drudgery. We were convinced that what came from the grocery store was more convenient and more sophisticated...That faster was better...

But after reading books about eating a local, sustainable diet (Nabhan, Pollan, Kingsolver, Berry, Slow Food Movement) it's hard to not want to lock up as much of the summer goodness as you can. And it's hard not to question thin promises of convenience, efficiency, and freedom. I've had all kinds of work that I could label at times as drudgery--sales clerk, teaching, writing, grading, even when I was a travel director. I've waited in line at the fast food restaurant and no matter how fast it comes, do we really think it's worth it? We're beginning to hear more of the costs of this type of eating for our health and our environment.

And yet, for me, trying to preserve our food myself is a challenge. First, I don't know what I'm doing! Second, I've got 3 children under 5. Isn't it enough to spend my time caring for them? Why learn this new time-consuming task?

It's a way to be frugal by stocking up on fresh fruit and vegetables at their cheapest (though there is the initial cost of jars and other equipment).

It's a way to eat well--produce is at the peak of its freshness and tastiness, packed with sunshine and vitamins. No additives, high-fructose corn syrup and other things we can't pronounce.

It's a way to become self-sufficient and productive. Most household economies produce nothing. We consume and consume and consume with little to show for it. We grow so tired consuming that we need to stop at the fast food store on the way home to cope; we complain of the drudgery.That's not the way it always was. And women's lives were filled with the knowledge and effort of real work for the good of their household. Work which brings delight to a family when a jar of homemade strawberry syrup is cracked open on a wintery morning.

And for these reasons and more, it's a way to eat sacramentally. In chapter one of his book, Living the Sabbath, Norman Wirzba explains that sacramental eating affirms the grace and beneficence of God made concrete: "we can learn to grow food and eat in a way that reflects thanksgiving and praise to God" (p. 27). As an illustration, he describes his grandfather, a small-time chicken farmer, who ate with a "realistic and palpable sense of the goodness and the costliness of creation--after all these chickens had died so he could eat. Their death could not be taken lightly, nor could their living. And so [the chicken's] very being demanded [the family's] respect and care. His eating was a sacramental eating, because it affirmed the grace and beneficence of God made concrete in the midst of his living. It was a Sabbath eating, permeated by his thanksgiving and praise to God" (p. 28).

And so, in this light, my small attempts to seek out good, healthy, sustainable, (yet affordable) food and then to preserve it for our family's use becomes a way for me to move toward more grateful and worshipful ways of being.

But how do we begin? Though I suggested some of these possibilities in this post, I'd like to suggest that preserving food through canning, freezing and drying is another place for sacramental eating to start.

And so here are a few ways that I have begun my attempts at food preservation over the last few years even when pregnant or with a new baby or little ones underfoot.


1. Learn from those who know. While I am a book person and I turn to the Internet for the littlest questions, there is nothing better than getting to watch up close and ask questions from someone of experience. Back in Wisconsin, I showed no shame and asked the women in my church who I heard put up their own tomato sauce if I could come over on one of their canning days. I asked a pie baker and a pesto maker to give me lessons. I was surprised when they seemed flattered and graciously shared advice and techniques. I enjoyed their company and hope I even helped. Space was created for fellowship as our conversations floated to topics such as house management, schooling, discipline, and God's work in our lives. "Work Bees" aren't part of most communities anymore and we wonder why it is so difficult to naturally create the kind of nurturing that Titus 2 describes.

If you don't know of anyone, ask a like-minded friend who also wants to learn. My sister-in-law has been great for this as I posted about here. With a friend, someone can hold the fort down, while the other nurses the baby or changes a diaper; children are occupied with a friend to play with.

2. Start with a clean work station. Tidy your house the night before, clear off lots of space on your counter tops. Wash all your jars and lids ahead of time.


3. Check and prep as much as possible the night before. Reread the directions and ingredients list. In a busy household, nothing can set you back more than a sink of dirty dishes or missing 1 tablespoon of lemon juice!


4. Plan ahead for meals that day. This is your morning for cold cereal and a banana and an even easier lunch. Have dinner ready to go in the crockpot or use up meals in the freezer. Nothing is more frustrating that to have worked for hours in the kitchen to then realize its supper time and you have nothing to show for it.

5. Plan what you'll do with your little ones. Maybe you can swap babysitting with a girlfriend--what an incentive to preserve--a morning to yourself?! But otherwise, have coloring books, playdough, or a new book on tape ready to go. And though we try to limit all screen time in our house, we're all about letting them watch an online classic sesame street video or an old Disney opera from the 1930s here and there.

But best of all, try to incorporate them into your activities.

Even preschoolers can fill the measuring cup with berries, be in charge of the mashing, cut off stems. In doing so, they get time with you. They learn all sorts of skills-measuring, counting, volume, following directions, fine motor skills. You also start instilling a culture of work and good habits into their life which can turn into their own experiences of delight.


6. But since your household is a busy one, minimize as many distractions as possible. Like the telephone! Use a timer; I never used one before kids but now I can stick something in the broiler for 3 minutes and then head off to change a diaper and completely forget the oven. Canning has lots of directions like boil for 15 minutes or simmer for 3 so I use a timer.



7. Start with easy stuff. Try one new thing each week or month or year!
For those of you who have never canned before, freezing your fresh herbs and vegetables is a simple start. Freezer jam is another great way to cheat at canning for the first timer. It requires little effort and is so delicious. Then build your repertoire slowly. Conquer your favorite fruit, put up your prized tomatoes.

Well, like I said, I have much to learn in this area and for much of my life I would have been resistant to the idea, but my hope is that "as our sensitivities expand and as our appreciation for the complex, gracious ways of God grows, we will gradually find that gratitude and praise are irrepressible. To experience God's hesed or covenantal love in the midst of our practical living is to enter God's domain of blessing and joy...As we learn to attend and respond to the creative, vivifying action of God among us, we will learn to participate in a Sabbath singing that is now attuned to and extends God's rhythms of delight and peace" (Weirzba p. 29).

All that from a jar of tomato sauce? Sign me up!

What's in Season: Spinach

Spinach!

We've just finished 2 squares of spinach (4 plants each), are about to move on to the third, and have planted a fourth. Growing it ourselves is way cheaper and tastier than buying it at the grocery store. Just like other leafy greens, it is so nice just to be able to go out and pick a few when they're needed. Spinach has been easy and quick to grow from seed--start some today!!!

Spinach has tons of calcium, is extremely rich in antioxidants, and has almost as much iron as ground beef. Work it into your salads, soups, lasagnas, mac-n-cheese, and dips.

Here are my two favorite spinach recipes! (You can always substitute 10 oz. frozen spinach)

Spinach Risotto
4 cups of chicken broth
1 1/2 tsp olive oil
1 Tbsp butter
2 shallots, chopped (I've substituted 1/2 cup of onion too)
1 cup Arborio or other short-grain rice
2 Tbsp white wine
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper
lots of spinach (it really reduces. About 1 head or 10 big leaves or 1 bag or 10oz frozen. You can always add it slowly with the amount you like and add any leftovers to the salad.)

Warm the broth in a saucepan.

In a large, heavy bottomed pot, heat oil and butter until the butter melts.

Cook the shallots until golden, about 3 minutes.

Add the rice and cook, stirring all the while, until the grains are shiny with oil. Pour in the wine.

Add about 1 cup of broth, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and stir occasionally until almost all of the liquid is absorbed.

Pour in 1/2 cup of broth, stir and simmer until the broth is absorbed. Continue to add the broth, 1/2 cup at a time, until all of the liquid is absorbed and the rice is creamy on the outside, but still a bit firm to the bite. This will take about 20 minutes.

Then stir in cheese, salt, pepper, and spinach. Serve immediately.


Spinach-Stuffed Chicken

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup thinly sliced leek (about 1 large)*
• 2 garlic cloves, minced (about 1 teaspoon)
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 3 oz. goat cheese **
  
• 1 (10-ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, drained, and squeezed dry
• 4 medium (about 5 ounces each) skinless, boneless chicken breasts, trimmed of excess fat
• 3 ounces bottled roasted red bell peppers (about 1 1/4 peppers), divided *
  
• 1 tablespoon butter, melted
• 1/4 cup Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs
• Cooking spray
• 1/4 cup dry white wine

1. Preheat oven to 350º.

2. Heat olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add leek, garlic, oregano, salt, crushed red pepper, and black pepper; cook and stir until leek is soft (about 5 minutes). Remove from heat and add the spinach, stirring to combine; set spinach mixture aside.

2. Cut the chicken breasts in half horizontally using a sharp knife. Place bottom halves of breasts in a 9- x 9-inch baking dish, setting top halves aside. Divide spinach filling evenly among breasts; top each portion with one-fourth of roasted red peppers, and replace the top halves of breasts.

3. Brush the top half of each chicken breast with melted butter; sprinkle with breadcrumbs, and spray lightly with cooking spray. Add wine to baking dish (avoiding the breadcrumbs), and bake for 40 minutes or until the chicken is completely cooked.

4. Remove chicken from oven; let rest for 5 minutes before serving. To serve, cut each breast into 3 or 4 slices on the diagonal to expose the stuffing, or simply leave each portion whole.

*I often omit the leeks or red peppers, if I don't have any on hand.

**My only addition to the original recipe is 3 oz. goat cheese to the spinach mixture. It makes it so creamy.

Strawberry Picking: Linvilla Orchards

My parents, daughter G, and I picked just over 50lbs of strawberries at Linvilla Orchards! It was lovely. We got there early so we were on the first tractor out to the fields with just 2 other families and were done by the time the crowds started pouring in.

Getting ready to head out

The strawberries were so ripe and big, just begging to be picked!

Grandma giving picking lessons and maybe sneaking a sample

I was so proud of G who picked 3 quarts herself as she sang little songs to the berries as she picked. No complaints. Pure delight and pride in her work. Pretty good for a 4 yr old.


So what will we do with all these berries?


Well, tonight, too tired to do much else, we just enjoyed the goodness of fresh picked berries with homemade whipped cream!

And tomorrow we'll start the day with strawberry pancakes! And then have a work day to put up freezer jam, jelly, strawberry-lemonade concentrate, strawberry-rhubarb pie filling and perhaps strawberry syrup. Now I'm worried I didn't pick enough :-) We'll end the day with a shortcake or pie for dessert.

G and PopPop tired but happy!

I was impressed with how plentiful the fields were and how tasty the berries are. Just 15 minutes from our house, I look forward to going back for more picking as different fruits come into season. Linvilla was a bit overwhelming in the fall at their pumpkin festival but it was a nice quiet day today. Look forward to trying Highland Orchards too! Let me know if there are any others in the Delaware County area worth a visit for peaches, pears, raspberries and blueberries!

What's in Season: Swiss Chard

Swiss Chard is ready to be picked in our garden. Chard is a rich in nutrient vegetable


It has been an easy veggie, grown four plants to 1 square foot. Ready in just 4 weeks, it is a prolific grower, tolerates poor soil, inattention, and even withstands frost and mild freezes.




Because they are extremely perishable, just pick a few outer leaves as you need them. As with most lettuce type plants, it is better to harvest them early rather than late!




Aren't those red stalks beautiful?! You can eat both the stalk and leaves! Chard does have a bit of a bitter flavor which you can minimize by making sure it gets plenty of water.


To make sure we eat them, I did some searching for new recipes. We most often saute the chard and eat it as a side dish or over pasta. I often add it to a beef stew or soup.


Sauteed Swiss Chard

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1/2 small red onion, diced
• 1 bunch Swiss chard, stems and center ribs cut out and chopped together, leaves coarsely chopped separately
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice, or to taste
• 2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• salt to taste (optional)

DIRECTIONS

1. Melt butter and olive oil together in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Stir in the garlic and onion, and cook for 30 seconds until fragrant. Add the chard stems and the white wine. Simmer until the stems begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Stir in the chard leaves, and cook until wilted. Finally, stir in lemon juice and Parmesan cheese; season to taste with salt if needed.

(4 slices of bacon or pancetta would be great a great addition!)

Swiss Chard with Beans and Goat Cheese

• 1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 tablespoons butter
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 pinch red pepper flakes
• 1 bunch Swiss chard - rinsed, stems removed and cut into 1/2 inch slices
• 1 (15.5 ounce) can pinto or black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 small tomato, chopped
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
• 3 tablespoons goat cheese

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease an 8 or 9 inch square baking dish.
2. Heat the oil and butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and red pepper flakes; cook and stir until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add Swiss chard, cover and cook for 4 minutes. Uncover and mix in the pinto beans, tomato, lime juice, salt and pepper. Cover and continue cooking until the chard is wilted, about 4 more minutes.
3. Transfer the chard to the baking dish and dot with goat cheese, pushing it down into the dish.
4. Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the goat cheese is warmed.

The Pursuit of God's Splendor: the theme of my blog

I've shared how much I love following the church calendar to provide a sense of rhythm and place for our family. Each year our most special days are centered around the life of Christ as we celebrate his birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension. We learn and relearn how we can be like him. And as we build these traditions we look forward with anticipation to what God will do in each new season. Over the last 10 years, we have created a rhythm of our days that brings us into deeper knowledge of Christ and one another.

As we have begun to create a rhythm for our family, I find more of a desire for rhythm and place in all parts of my life. It is not enough to have created space for God on Sunday or a Feast Day--I want more. Indeed, that space isn't even possible unless all of my life is centered on Him. When I race through my week, to come to a screeching halt on Sunday, it is hard to rest, it is difficult to hear his voice. Norman Wirzba writes that

"many of us submit to daily schedules that keep us moving at a soul-blistering, exhaustion-inducing pace, and we agree to ever-lengthening to-do lists that invariably leave us stretched or stressed to the breaking point...The frantic, fragmenting, multi-tasking character of contemporary living has made it likely that many of us simply evade or fail to consider with much seriousness or depth, life's most basic and profound questions:

What is all our living finally for?
Why do we commit to so much?
Why do we devote our selves to the tasks or priorities that we do?
Will we know when we have achieved or acquired enough?
What purpose does our striving serve?

...[and] in answering them we get a clearer picture of how closely our intentions and our living line up with the purposes of God.
Do we truly believe ourselves to be children of God and members of creation, and thus able to trust in God's beneficent care and provision?" (Living the Sabbath p. 19-20)

God creates and sustains a world dependent on his goodness and we are invited to find delight in His abundance. Not forced or coerced, invited. But it is an invitation we often chose to ignore and thus miss out on much of God's care. Wendell Berry writes that

"The creation is a living work in which every creature must participate...We humans, by our particular nature, must participate for better or worse, and this is our choice to make. Will we choose to participate by working in accordance with the world's originating principles, in recognition of its inherent goodness, in gratitude for our membership in it, or will we participate by destroying it in accordance with our always tottering, never resting self-justifications and selfish desires" (Living the Sabbath preface).

Much of our failure to see the abundance of God stems from a modern life disembodied from any sort of rhythm that we find in the created world. As Wordsworth wrote 202 years ago:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

So much of our modern life separates ourselves from the natural world. Many people no longer have to experience the cold of winter and the heat of summer outside their home or place of work. Yet then one day seems so very much like the next. And we can live indifferently here or there, and move when we wish, so it matters little to us what the city or builders do to our local creeks and forests (as long as it doesn't effect our taxes!).

As our family has found rhythm and place in the Church year and looked to Sabbath as the culmination and high point of our week, we also wanted and then found more ways to participate in the times and places of creation.

Spending time in nature on walks through parks, by creeks, around our neighborhood are small ways we have found to reclaim our hearts. We see the rhythms of work and rest, birth and death all around us. And we create rhythm as we visit and revisit the same hikes through each season. We travel at a snail’s pace as we go, following or waiting for our little ones as they investigate ants, leaves, streams (have you ever tried hiking with a 2 yr old?!). But at this pace and through our repeated steps, we begin to see changes in plant and tree and flower as we go. The repetition of our steps on these trails is not really about exercise, nature study, or even really time together, although this is all accomplished; our walks have opened all our eyes to the small wonders of God's creation. In the fall, our children fell in love with the yellow poplar leaves on the ground; then this Spring they found these amazing flowers covering our trail—to their amazement these flowers were from their beloved poplars! We would miss these wonders without repetition and rhythm.

Gardening has become another way for us to create a rhythm for our days. We have participated in our "membership," as Berry puts it, with this earth as we work our little garden plots. All that goes into tending a garden forces us to be aware of the forecasts for hail or frost or heat. All that planting and weeding and watering creates a feeling of membership and place; so much so, that on our last vacation if you would ask any one of us what we missed most about home, we would have all said "our garden." And so we have found a rhythm as we follow the seasons and the needs of our garden each day. It is this work that builds in us a capacity for delight and gratitude. The time spent makes us long for the first bite of that first ripened tomato. The first leaves of spinach are eaten with wonder and gratitude. So even our cooking and eating according to what's in season has become another way we've marked the time and created a sense of place. A few weeks ago we were surrounded by empty plots of dirt and in faith planted our seeds. When we eat from our garden we know these fruits were so recently unavailable to us and in a few weeks they will be gone again.

And since we cannot grow all we need, shopping for fresh produce at our local farmer's market is another step. At first, it was hard: what do you mean tomatoes aren't in season yet, we can't eat blueberries anymore, the pears were all damaged by hail? But again the longing and desire.

I remember too that last summer I was very pregnant and it was very hot and I had 2 small children in tow and at times I wondered if it was worth it. Couldn't I get this same produce at the air-conditioned, wide-aisled, large cart supermart down the street?

And then I tasted this produce still filled with sunshine- it tasted like I remembered it as a child. Blueberries as big as eyeballs tasted like blueberries. Tomatoes like tomatoes. Fresh, not waxed or coated, not sprayed to color (ripen is hardly a word you can use to describe most of the brightly colored “produce” at the grocery store).

If I thought it was work to just buy the produce, how much more work the farmers and their children had to work that very day to bring me the food (the very people I got to meet and shake hands with, the very people who greeted my little ones with smiles and samples, who gave me advice on storing and cooking). Whether it was rainy or hot, whether I showed or not.

And I learned wonder and gratitude.

Wordsworth continues:

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.

The Sea, the winds are in tune with the moon, the hours. And we are not. It is a rare thing to find delight and wonder and gratitude with the very ordinary things of life.

I want to find splendor in dirt, seed, sun, and rain--"the ordinary stuff lifted up which is holy."

And so, my days are filled with the repetitious work of a mother and homemaker, gardener and teacher, wife and friend, and my attempts to do work that fits the world's originating purposes reveals the "inherent goodness" of creation and the glory of God. I’m more able to rest and delight in the work and in the work He has done. Living out the liturgy of the church year is just one small step. There are many more to take.

Spring Clean-Kitchen

I posted about how I hoped to get our mudroom back in shape. This area isn't heated so in the winter it becomes a dumping ground and since I can shut the door, I can forget it.

It felt so good to get it all in order. I started with the hardest area first and it surprisingly didn't take as long as I thought. So I was able to move on to the pantry, the fridge and a few of the cabinets that needed reorganizing. It's always hard when you first unpack at a new house to know where things will best work. I also got rid of some things we never use, junk that had accumulated and staples that were past their prime.

The only bad/good part was that it took me right up until dinner to get the work done and then I didn't want to mess it all up so hubby took us out for pizza!

So here are the pics for Spring Cleaning: Day Four and Five

Before:



After:


The Pantry:



Thanks again, Simple Mom, for the inspiration.