We Be Jammin'

Oh, I love jammin'. Which is a good thing, since I have picked or purchased 48 lbs of strawberries this June!

So far this year:

Strawberry Jam with Vanilla Bean and Honey

Strawberry Jam with Vanilla Bean and Agave

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam

Tayberry Jam with Bramble Bush Honey.

And I've just begun...

I love Pomona's Pectin because you don't have to add as much sugar, or even sugar at all. I've been mainly making my jams now with honey or agave. I use about 4 cups mashed berries, one split vanilla bean and about 1 cup of honey or agave.

There will probably be another batch of strawberry jam and at least one more of tayberry in my near future. I was so happy to see tayberries at Emma Lea today. Hurray! I must go back to the u-pick soon. I loooooove them! Then we'll move on to raspberry, apricot, peach...

Zucchini Never Looked So Good

I had to document this accomplishment!

Roxy's Birthday Cake.

Three Tiers for Three Decades.

It's Chocolate-Zucchini Cake, because that is what she loves. I swear, this cake is my one and only reason for growing zucchini in my garden. Well, that and a few other yuumy baked goods. As a vegetable side dish? That rarely crosses my mind. As a base for sugar, butter, spices and flour? Oh yeah.

Happy Birthday Roxanne!

And The Final Bell Has Rung

School's out!

I have been out of blog action for a few months - oops. No camera, no time, and probably other excuses too. I'm too tired to think of them right now.

But I now have a lovely new camera - a Canon G10 that I got for Mother's Day - woohoo! As soon as I can figure out how to make enough memory in my darn computer to download my many new photos, I'll really be back in action!

But for now, I am just glad to say that school is out.

We love our little Annex, we really do. But we are not morning people. Well, we used to be early risers (and I still am), but we weren't get-up-and-go-ers, if that makes sense. We'd rather get up early and hang out in our pjs most of the morning, drinking tea and reading. My kids have moved into a later sleeping schedule, so it is so great to not have to wake them up every morning and drag them out the door. Please, oh please, children, keep going with the 9:30am wake-ups you've been doing on the weekends. How lovely a summer will I have then? I mean, that would be about 2 hours every morning to myself!

We also aren't very good at schedules and having to be certain places at certain times so we are day-camp/summer camp free! That means lots of days to fill for me as the summer break is ten weeks. Right now I am super excited, but I know after two days listening to the Bickersons (as I call my two older kids) I will be counting down the weeks until school begins again! Oh, I hope not.

We have started our Summer List. They aren't finished yet; most likely we will add to it over the next day or two. I'll post it here when it is done so I have to follow through!

As in the above photo, one thing on my list for sure is eating outside as many days as possible! That photo was taken back in May, I think. I can't believe how much the garden has grown since then. June has been good to us this year. Although looking at the photo is reminding me of the loaded raspberry bushes that we promptly killed a day or so later by moving to another area. What idiots we were. Lucky for us, those raspberries have forgiven us in the past and come back to bless us with their yumminess the following year. I am mourning the raspberry vodka I make with our garden berries every year. Although it will taste pretty awesome with u-pick berries too! Yummmmm.

Summer vacation. Awesome.

We Are All In This Together

I discovered the best way to feel a renewed sense of family and community connectedness this Spring.

You simply have to meet Peggy O'Mara.

See? Simple!

As a Mothering subscriber, I have read Peggy's words eagerly with each issue that comes through my mail slot. But meeting her in person was better. She is real, and she is open, and I just love those two qualities in people. Especially people who are in a position to influence how others may raise their children.

I was lucky enough to spend three days with Peggy, first at the lovely Tea Party fundraiser put on by Lunapads, and then at the Healthy Families Conference. With all the inspiring things that came out of those events, what has stayed with me most was Peggy's openness about the highs and especially the lows of running a magazine like Mothering, and her excitement at the suggestions put forth by some local, entreprenurial Mamas during the Tea Party. There was such a sense of community, a sense of "we're all in this together", and it was amazing to be part of it. She is the best kind of people, really. She is down to earth.

Spring Break

Ahhh,

Off to southern California, where it is apparently 20 degrees or so.

I will wear capris and sandals and knit in the sun and feel simply blissful...

Happy Spring Break everyone!

Learning to Read

I bought this book from 1957 called Bucky's Friends for my son Shea. I bought it quite some time ago, with the intention of giving it to him when he learned to read. It is like a boy's version of a Dick and Jane-style book. Very cute and vintage. My daughter loved to read us Dick and Jane when she first learned to read, so I thought he might to.

He read it to us the other night.

Sometime over the last couple of months, while I was assuming he was playing at the sand table and building with blocks when I left him at his Kindergarten, he went and learned to read.

I don't know why this surprises me so much - I mean, the boy is smart. He is, quite truthfully, smarter than I ever give him credit for. He's very laid-back. Laid-back to the point where you think he's not paying any attention, not taking anything in, but he is. He's just not sitting "criss-cross-applesauce" with his hands folded in his lap while he's doing it.

Anyway, I am an avid reader, and I desperately want my kids to be too. That's not such a terrible desire is it? That said, I really did not care if he learned to read in Kindergarten. I mean, he's 5, a Fall baby who is one of the youngest in his class, and he is in a Full-Day Kindergarten, which was quite an adjustment for him. (And me. I like having him around. He's lovely company.) So we have been dealing with the teacher's concerns this past Fall about his attention span and focus. My instinct is listed above: he's 5, a Fall baby and in Full-Day Kindergarten. Our family doctor said the same thing. (I love it when my doctor feels the same way I do!) And he's following his sister, who was with this teacher last year, and who was one of the oldest in her class, and could sit "criss-cross-applesauce" with her hands in her lap all day if need be. (I keep repeating the "criss-cross" thing not because I actually talk that way, but because I can't get the phrase out of my head right now and it's driving me nuts).

But, here my sweet boy has learned to read at a younger age than his sister even, and while he was laying on the carpet, "not focussing". Hah!

Shea is a Mama's Boy. Has been from day one, and will be forever, I am sure. We just like hanging out together. My Mama Bear insticts are stronger for him than for my other two kids. I wonder about that often. He is the middle child, which, having grown up in a household where the "middle child" was right out of a stereotypical, worst-case scenario, I really feel strongly about this middle child succeeding in every way. It makes me ache when things aren't going perfectly. I think that's why I am always ready to leap to his defense. He's only one school year behind his Big Sister, who is a completely different kind of learner than he is. I hate that the reality of school is that they will be compared. I mistakenly thought that because they are of different sexes, there was no comparison. But it doesn't work that way, I am learning. The thing is, he's smart, just not interested in sitting at a desk at this time in his life. Who can blame him?

I plan to ramble on about these thought as time passes. Perhaps I am over-thinking it all? As a Mama Bear, it's what I do. In the meantime, he is reading! To me! And enjoying it!

I'm so proud of you, Shea-boy!

Happy Birthday Faire!

Seven Things About Faire:

1. She is an amazing Big Sister. Seriously. She helps me more than anyone else in the family, and she is rarely asked to. She just busies herself taking care of her baby sister like she is her own. What a Mama she will be one day.

2. She is a wonderful artist. There are works of art all over this house. Anyone have any ideas how we contain it all? I'm all ears!

3. She loves tradition. Baking "mama's bread", bringing us breakfast on Santa Lucia day, advent calendars...these are the things I also love and want to nuture in her.

4. She is a good friend. She has made lovely friends at school, and gets along so well with them. No mean-spirited talk. I hope that never comes...

5. She likes to take photos. She's pretty good too! We have some framed in our kitchen.

6. She likes to bake and knit. A future Domestic Goddess? In this house, you just wouldn't fit in if you didn't love hanging out with the butter and sugar in the kitchen. She makes great Mama's Bread (a Swedish cardamom bread). And she's been knitting a scarf for herself (or maybe just a neckwarmer - she can't decide)

7. She is a sensitive thinker. She hates to hear anything sad. In fact, as she was helping to make cookies for part of the Out Of The Cold project this past December, she was in tears thinking about those less fortunate who have no homes to go to, or families to spend Christmas with. It broke my heart. And after learning a little about African-American history (after questioning why "Obama was such a big deal") she was in total shock at the concept of slavery. And racism. Her most favourite relative, her cousin Maya, is half Jamaican. The thought of Maya or anyone else not being respected (or worse) because of the colour of their skin just seemed so "stupid" to her (and she was worried because she wanted to say it was stupid but knew that saying things were stupid was not nice. What a girl.)

Happy Happy Birthday to You, Seven Year Old! We hope you get what you wished for (we certainly did when we got you!)

xoxoxoxo

Mama and the crazy bunch