Spring 2018

It has been a busy few months, to say the least! I'll attempt to hit on some of the highlights though.

• February was full of seeding things in the garden, and finishing up some projects that had been in the back of our minds for some time. 

• In March we welcomed a baby goat buckling that was born right here in our garage birthing pen. It was a first time for both the mama goat, Saffron, and us (helping to pull baby). It was all very exciting. Later we hosted a morning playdate with some school friends, and it was a joy to see all the children interacting with the animals that live here and spending the rest of the time playing in the treehouse. We also started picking things from the garden this month and began incorporating them into our meals. We also planted 30 tomatoes. I guess we're canning this year. 

• We managed to squeeze in a quick trip to San Marcos, TX before our second mama goat was due. It was a nice time spent hiking, lots of biking (my poor bike hadn't been rode for 2 whole years! Sad) watching live country music, touring little shops, and falling out of an airplane. Yes, you read that right. Ted finally convinced me to go skydiving with him.  

• April brought about more baby goats. This time twins, to mama Aurelia! A brother and sister, so very cute. We plan on keeping the little doeling, Pepper, to raise as a future milk goat. 

• Which brings me to our latest adventure: in milking goats! So far we are only milking Saffron, and she's giving us almost a quart per day. Tomorrow we plan on making some chevre because it adds up quite fast, and we're still switching over gradually from drinking whole cow milk to raw goat milk. But if you wonder, honestly, I can't tell much difference in taste. I think because of the diet we have our goats on, the milk is buttery and sweet and grassy-like. No yogurty sour flavors whatsoever, like I had imagined. 

• I'm finding it very exciting to not have to go to the grocery store so often. This small homesteading thing is finally starting to pay off a little. Some things we've produced using our own recources have included: Using peaches from our tree to make pie, Making bouquets from our own flowers, Drying herbs, Making elderberry tinctures, Ferments, Gathering our own eggs, Collecting our own milk, Using all sorts of greens in various meals. The only thing missing now is honey. Bzzzzz! And maybe quail.....and maybe a few more chickens....and is there room for a Jersey cow somewhere? 

And on top of all the farmy stuff there are the adventures with the Morehouse kiddos. They impress me every day, and I love watching them grow and discover new things. Sometimes I'm in awe of their conversations with each other, and it makes my heart so happy. Other times I am pulling them apart so that they don't kill each other. A healthy balance, as they say. 

Setting intentions for the New Year

Happy 2018 everyone. I've seen a lot of 'words for the year' floating around the internet, and it got me thinking: What is my theme word going to be for this new year? Most of my goals involve building things for our animals, mainly a proper goat milking barn and place for keeping all of the feed supplies. And then there's painting the rest of the house. Painting Scraps the Traveling Van. Building a small roadside book library open to the public. Actually, I have quite a few woodworking projects I'd like to tackle, and they are out of my skill range. But back to the barn. Would my word be Independence? Self-reliance? Self-supporting? I realized all of that is just too much to take on. Learning new carpenter skills seems like a pretty big challenge, and when exactly was I going to have time to be teaching myself how to construct this barn? Hmmm. No, I need help.
That's why I am settling on this word of the year: Community. Maybe it's time to start asking others for their help when I need it. It goes far beyond just building this milking barn. Help watching the kids when mama needs a little self care? Getting together for meals? Making beautiful art together? Trading and swapping goods instead of monetary exchange? Just general communing and getting to know others around us better? Yes, yes, yes!
Here's a photo from a very communal Friends-giving trip, in which we all shared a house, yummy food, screaming babies, and memories to last for years! Really, it was a fun trip!

Prepping for Winter Faire

It seems as if December is slipping right on by. Our annual school Winter Faire was today, and we have been bizzy bees getting projects completed for this magical tradition. Finn was eager to help with the activity area sign preparations, and there he is above- blending watercolor pencil with a brush of water. Painting, felting dolls to sell, and baking the KU Geology cream-cheese filled snicker-doodles were pretty much what my days have looked like this week. I hope more people took photos today, because it really was a beautiful event that I'm so grateful to have been a part of. Thank you, Bayou Village community!

Oh, and I even came home carrying a couple bags of soft alpaca wool that I can't wait to try out on some new dolls in the works. See my latest needle-feltings at https://www.facebook.com/beneaththegreenwood/

The Apron

I started wearing an apron about seven years ago. I think my husband gifted it to me for Mother’s Day one year. It was bright yellow and patterned with bees all over it. I had always associated an apron with people who were good in the kitchen. And I definitely didn’t fit into that category. I didn’t do a whole lot of cooking or baking for our small family back in those days.

I can’t say why I started wearing that apron in the first place. But I remember when I did, something very strange would happen. Almost always, I would be more productive in the work that I was doing that day. Not only that, but the work itself would have more thought put into it. It seemed the very act of putting the apron on and tying those long ribbons around the back shifted my entire perspective, and I was mentally prepared to take on the day with a more positive outlook on whatever may come my way.

Years went by, more aprons came, more babies came, (and we kept adding more live animals to our brood too!) and wearing an apron actually became a more functional part of my wardrobe. I was constantly needing a pocket to hold little things that needed carried around. Whether it was for holding treasures that the boys had found, or a place to keep my little pocket knife, or acting as an extra hand when I forgot the egg-collecting basket but had already gone out to check the coop, my apron pockets became something I just could not live without. And I can’t count the times I have had to use it as a rag for drying my hands when all of the towels somehow seem to have disappeared...or the times it has been used as a tissue to wipe away a child’s tears, or my own.

The original bee apron doesn’t get much wear very often anymore. As time has passed, I’ve leaned toward new favorites, but she will always be the one apron that started it all for me. You can still find her hanging up proudly on a hook by the pantry, ready to help me when I call her to the job.

A song we wrote in the car ride to school today

Old Man Rogers

by Finn Morehouse (with some help from Jaylyn Morehouse)

Old Man Rogers is a dreamed up character that has been known to show up in the boys' play from time to time. He is an "old man who likes to steal our animals". A rogers is "a person who steals things like money". I imagine it's similar to a robber ;) In this song, Old Man Rogers goes through a lot of work, only to find himself in a bad position in the end.

Old Man Rogers went to the farm,

he got a chicken and he threw it in the barn,

The chicken said "cluck" and out came an egg,

and scrambled eggs is what he made.

Old Man Rogers went to the farm,

he got a goose and threw it in the barn,

The goose said "honk' and he pooped on his shoe,

and Old Man Rogers didn't know what to do.

Old Man Rogers went to the farm,

he got a goat and he threw it in the barn,

The goat used his horns and he butted him with his head,

then Old Man Rogers was soon dead.

Welcome, September

This week was full of heart ache as we watched our city get slammed by trillions of gallons of water from Hurricane Harvey. Today's newspaper headline read '51 Inches!' We were fortunate to have a safe and dry place to live while all of this was happening, but we're emotionally drained and feeling all sorts of survivors guilt in the aftermath of it all. So many families are displaced. People we personally know have gone from being self dependent to having no where to live in the course of a few days. We got to go inside one of these majorly flooded houses this morning. Entire subdivisions had piles and piles of damaged household furniture, sheet rock, and ruined flooring out on the curbs. The houses have to be stripped down to the studs, and fast, before the mildew and mold start to really rot it and it becomes in-salvageable. So very overwhelming and sad. But in the midst of it all, there are so many volunteers helping out. Lots of love is going around, and that is what is keeping everyone's spirits up.

Schools have been delayed until after Sept. 11th. And even now, the district isn't entirely sure if it will meet that deadline. This year Briggs will be going into grade 1. Finn will be attending a Waldorf mixed kindergarten class, and little Max is going to do some half-days twice a week at the Waldorf school too. I'm not really sure what Madeline and I will be working on while the boys are away. Probably tending the animals and trying to conquer the fall garden. I'm determined to get the back of the house painted at some point too, along with an infinite number of small yard projects that are calling me.

We've done a bunch of cleaning up this week while the sun dries out the ground. We had to drain our animal run with a new pipe to get all the standing water out before mosquitoes took advantage of that. I spent a good portion of a morning mucking out the chicken coop and cleaning all the mud out due to the chickens AND goats co-living in it for 4 days straight while the rain poured. The animals were (for the most part) high and dry through it all. Saffron and Aurelia kept head-butting the hens out the door, poor girls. The hens managed to avoid becoming broody, and only one entered molting season so far. Our egg production has slowed down because we're in the heat of the summer. I'm so looking forward to those cool crisp mornings where I can't feel any humidity suffocating my nose! I must be patient though.

Keep all of Houston in your thoughts and prayers. And if you want to come help with relief efforts, you have a place to stay here. We have 1 bunk bed in the kids' room, a double mattress we can put on the floor, and a tent platform on the deck outside (although, I would really only recommend that once it cools off).

July 1, 2017

Tree top house

Beeswax in votive molds

Getting consciously cozy

Scrap soup: A combination of left overs, freezer items, and garden harvest

It seems as if the dog days of summer have arrived here. If that means everyone feels like laying around and taking it slow, that is. It's just so hot out that we have had to put a halt on some of the outside projects, or only work on them when we have the energy and hydration.
Even so, we have spent a good portion of our time on the boys' treehouse. It now has walls and a roof! I think it looks pretty cute up there. We're counting down the days until we can decorate the inside (or maybe that's just me).

Ted and I have been embracing all that is hygge, and have started making candles to achieve cozy lighting and atmosphere in our home. We're using beeswax, and it smells wonderful when we have it liquefying on the stovetop. Like a honeypot of goodness! Now, if only it were cold enough to wear woolen socks....

The garden is still producing lots of peppers and tomatoes, and I've been throwing them into practically every dish that I can. I think we've discovered that of everything we hoped to grow, peppers are one thing that do extremely well here. Somehow our bell pepper plants are taller than me!

And last, but certainly not least, someone around here turned 5! The birthday crown is still going strong, and this must be his favorite birthday shirt, because I remember taking a very similar photo last year.