Hiking

A friend of mine and her daughter came to visit last week. We shared some good company and enjoyed a much needed, refreshing hike on a few trails through the Botanical Gardens.

The trail followed the river, pretty low but very lovely water.

We found a snake skin hiding in the leaves aside the trail. It actually turned out to be a pretty long snake.

HA! This is actually a picture of a tree that I flipped upside down.
It reminded me of a pair of legs. :)

I just really love the twist of this big beautiful tree!

Heading back into town more than a few turkeys were walking along side of the road. We stopped, pulled out the kids and talked to them a bit. These were males and were absolutely beautiful. I told O I would love to have one of the turkey's feathers and he wanted to actually pull one out...wouldn't that have been a sight?!

Ah, a fresh batch of essential oils....
and you can't get something without giving up something.....my camera has been dropped yet again......but thank goodness for warranties!

Mountains And A Finished Sock

Oscar and I ventured up to the mountains to begin our week. We hung out with my grandparents, O's great and had yet another wonderful trip.

Thank goodness this time it wasn't storming! We played in another one of my grandmothers boxes of knitted and sewing goodness.We collected O's boot full of acorns...a full boot!

I can't quite decide what to do with them. They are so big and beautiful with many different colors, I would be just happy sitting with them at the kitchen table and imagining the different faces and putting names to them.

Really, they are stunning. I'll post pictures next week of the different ones that struck my fancy.

We had a full ride, hanging with the grandparents, collecting acorns, driving around the mountains, went to visit my bestest friend, went to watch my brother play softball, and then we shopped with my mom.

Notice O's new outfit, with new shoes to fit. He's very proud of them and thinks he can run faster in these shoes.
I got in a little knitting and wound up finally finishing mine and O's first sock! Woo Hoo! I received a lot of help at my favorite local handy dandy knit shop. So it's off to start on the other foot......

Until next thyme!
a

Found Objects

I love little found objects that find their way into our home. O had picked up these little leaves really without me realizing and delicately placed them on the kitchen table with a few rocks on each. He saw the beauty and potential of this little collection to make a display for our home.
Since then I've noticed a few rocks have been added to the table display. And I am sure they will soon find their way to the nature/season table and be replaced by some garden flowers, more rocks and leaves, sticks, gourds or anything else he can find fanciful!

On another note: here's the new dog/baby/little mama that O picked up at the Brunch.
I must say that he has very good taste indeed!


His "old mama" with the "new mama"

Until tomorrow
a

Tomatoes B&A

I'm going to keep this post short, due to the illness I've had all week.
When you have kids and sickness falls upon you, they want to do what they want regardless of how anyone feels.
So, it was off to dehydrating our abundance of tomatoes, apples and bananas.
Not that we grew the apples or bananas, they were just fun to cut up and lay out on the trays.
8 or so hours later we had a veggie and fruit feast; tomatoes, apples, bananas, cheese and bread.
Easy snack for a not feeling good mama!

Until next week
a

Brunch B&A

'Brunch in the Field' was held this past Sunday at a dear friends farm.
You may remember it from last year.
Local Chefs prepared some wonderful fixings all made using Tim and Alice's milled products. Grits with shrimp, chicken and sausage, pork ribs with porridge and an arugula watermelon salad. If that wasn't enough there were 3 desserts to chose from! It was all very tasty but I think my favorite was the Grit Pie! It's texture was smooth, and tasted a little like custard topped with a blueberry sauce. Oh my delicious!
It was a fun day and again this year O got to pick him out another one of Mikes creatures.
Last year he picked up, um picked out "his woman". This year he decided on a dog, he calls "his baby".
So, now he needs a daddy, he says. Very cute indeed!

Pictured below are some local crafts people doing demos and selling their art.

Blacksmith doing a demo making handles. Very focused, intense, hot and skillful work.

Tim and Alice's milled products are named after their Mule, Red Mule Grits.

Louise spinning with some wool. She had some very cool fibers she was working with.
Wool, raw cotton, flax, (that she grew) and linen.

Her products to show through the spinning she has done.

Hope you have a wonderful day
....until tomorrow...
a

Godzilla B&A

I did a little research last week and came up with a project that was simple and fun.
I found this site for free stencils. And on this blog for a demo. I had gone through my paint stash and all I had was 10 year old bottles of fabric paint that I wasn't sure how well they would work, so we headed off to our local art supply store to pick up some more up.
We search through his drawers and found a tee shirt that was clear of print. I line my soap molds with freezer paper so I already had this on hand. O picked out a Godzilla stencil which I traced and cut out. I ironed the Godzilla on his shirt with an extra sheet between the shirt and his went to town, very important if you don't want the paint to bleed through the back of the shirt.
We started off with a rusty yellow and within a few dabs the paint was soaking right into the blue shirt. Luckily we had picked up a few different styles. We chose a metallic turquoise and in which we dabbed it on and the paint really held to the shirt.

He could barely hold still for me to take a finished-product picture!
We let it dry overnight and the next day he tore the paper off the next day and wore it out.
We have washed it twice now and I haven't noticed any sign of wear or paint cracks.

Eggs B&A

I wanted to do a weeks blog about the befores and after. Cause you know everything has a before and after; eating, walking, biking, harvesting, playing. I've noticed this much more since I have had a child. So here's to a week of B&As!

Fresh eggs from the Farmers Market
Turned into lunch for the two of us.

Leaf Tree

My child never really got picky about his food until he was about 2 years old. Then his tongue feelers took a left turn. He stopped eating things he used to love. I think for him it's a texture thing. I can feed him a bite of food with say, cheese, zucchini, couscous and broccoli and within his bite in his mouth, he can go in and pull out the zucchini...and just the zucchini.
Along with being a picky water is his appetite. He's not much of an eater, (most of the time) and if he has a taste for something, he won't eat anything unless he has eaten that one thing first. So for dinner the other night. I fixed him everything he loves to eat; kale, fried okra, couscous and green beans. I should have taken an after picture to show you how much, or really how little there was left on the plate. It sure does make you feel good after the plate is scraped clean!

The kale is a recipe from Feeding the Whole Family. And this has been a family favorite for a long while!

Since the seasons have changed at our home already we have begun our indoors Fall Festival.
We went for a walk last week and took up a big collection of leaves that had fallen from our maple and oak trees and built our Leaf Tree.

Attaching our found leaves on our tree.

Now there's somewhere to put all of those leaves that are picked up on a daily basis. Cause you know every time you go outside something is bound to be picked up!
A finished but never-ending leaf tree project.

Next week, I have a collection of before and afters so stay tuned.

:)
a

Never Too Old

....Or too big to be slung!

Special Wishes

My birthday has come and gone....my birthday wishes have changed since getting older and having a family. Cloth napkins were high on the list, cause you know you can always use those! Anything given to me by O just melts my heart. Especially the bag o' leaves. All ones he picked up and found, (with only moms birthday in mind) from around school campus to our own garage. They have beauty within themselves however only beautiful because of how they were given from a pure giving heart.

The beautiful flowers are from my love. The leaves decorating the bottom of the vase are, of course, the ones given ones from O along with the stick, for "just in case".
I enjoyed a relaxing day with a quiet morning all to myself then brunch with my family, a nap and a hubby cooked dinner completed with a candle wished cake. It was a magical day and I thank my family for just being my family!

The birthday/seasonal table. My favorite card being the mermaid card on the left. Oscar is into mermaids ever since reading how Little Bear pretended to catch one. He plans to go fishing and catch one!
Hope you catch something wonderful in your day as well!

HI

Just wanted to chime in and say HI and hope your having a great weekend!

Gourds

Every time I step outside I find that this lovely plant is growing more and more fruits. It's from some gourd seeds that I started a lot late in the season and only about 5 of the 20 seeds I planted came up. No problem really, the five plants are taking up a heck of a lot of space and the fruits are probably going to weigh down our make shift fence. The gourds on it already are growing at a rapidly fast pace! Everyday you can see that it has grown....kind of like a child....that fast.The flowers are just beautiful to watch. They open up in the early early morning and by mid-afternoon they have closed up for the day.

This here is one of the gourds that sit right outside our window. The one that is most paid attention to.
And I can't leave without showing a picture of our new addition.
Oscar came to me after holding Sally for a while and asked if I had anything to hold her in so that she wouldn't be so heavy. I opened the closet door and out he came with his old sling. Notice we had to twist around his shoulder. He as well as she enjoyed the slinging!

until next time.....ans