Finding Our Rhythm

Tomorrow is the first day of the harvest holidays and I think it's a great time to implement a few changes around here. If you read my previous post you will know that we reached a point a couple weeks ago where we ran out of steam. At the time I wasn't sure what we were going to do to get things under control, but slowly and surely the answers are starting to come into focus.

The first thing that has become quite apparent to me is that our family really needs to get into some kind of rhythm that will help us streamline our lives and focus on the things and people we love. I've read over and over how important rhythm is in family life and I guess it took a meltdown for it to sink in.

After examining our lives and doing a bit of research I was able to break our family rhythms down into four sections: 

Life Rhythm
The cycle from birth to death. I don't really have a handle yet on how to pin this down. By observing our birthdays and life milestones? I'm open to suggestions.

Seasonal Rhythm
The cycle of the season of the year. Our family has been okay about being observant of the seasons, but I think we can do better. I'm also planning on dedicating each season to a specific task such as preserving, handwork, gardening and so on. That way we are able to focus on one seasonal task at a time instead of trying to do all the things all the time.

Weekly Rhythm

As the old poem goes,  


Wash on Monday
Iron on Tuesday
Mend on Wednesday
Churn on Thursday
Clean on Friday
Bake on Saturday
Rest on Sunday

We will obviously have to modify this somewhat to fit with our modern life, but the basic idea will be the same. Although, I have to admit that I think this will be the hardest for us to keep up with. I can micromanage the day to day well enough. The seasonal comes naturally. This mid-range rhythm is going to be a bit tougher I think.

Daily Rhythm
We've already been working on this one. I have daily lists posted on our tack board of the things that we have to do in the evening when we come home. I'm going to revise it a bit and add one for the morning as well.

In the next few days I will be dedicating an individual post to each of these types of rhythm with a plan for how our family will keep up with each.

Update

It's been nearly a month since I've written anything. The first week I was absent I was working on another project that I'm trying to get off the ground. The second week I was gone was supposed to have been spent relaxing, but instead it was spent putting out those little fires that life likes to throw at you when you're least prepared. The third week was the breaking point.

After running out of steam Jacob had to go to the hospital and was treated for exhaustion, dehydration, vitamin deficiency and an upper respiratory infection. No great surprise since he works three jobs and takes care of the yard and the animals and helps out with the garden and of course parenting. Thankfully, we have some wonderful friends and family who came to our rescue to help out. However, after all this, one thing has become apparent. We cannot continue to do all the things we do. I'm not exactly entirely sure what we are going to give up yet, but some things are going to have to go. It's going to be a process to see what we can keep and what we have to give up.

I will continue posting here, but perhaps not as frequently. We simply have to get the basics under control before we can put our energy wholeheartedly into any of our projects. Stay tuned folks. I'm not abandoning this blog just yet, but it may be a bit quieter around here for a while.

The Underappreciated Crabapple

Summer is starting to set in and the canning in our house is beginning to ramp up. My latest project has been crabapple jelly. While they used to be a household staple, I think crabapples are rather under appreciated these days, so I thought would share my crabapple reverie with you.

We are very lucky to have a crabapple tree in our backyard and even though we haven't given it the best of care it still provides us with plenty of crabapples for canning. As you can see from the picture above, we don't treat them with anything so they aren't very pretty. Luckily, crabapple jelly doesn't require them to be pretty.

The only thing necessary to prepare them for processing is washing them and removing the stems and blossom ends. Since the cooked mixture, including seeds and cores, will be strained out and a great deal of pectin, which helps the jelly gel, is found in the cores, you wouldn't want to remove the cores anyhow.

Once the mixture is cooked down it has to be strained through cheesecloth. I used a strainer lined with cheesecloth and held up with kebab skewers over a large bowl to collect the juice. The important thing in this step is to make sure, tempting though it may be, that you don't squish the cooked apples and release the apple mush into the juice thus causing your jelly to be cloudy.

After cooking the juice down with sugar and pectin the jars are filled and processed for 10 minutes in a water bath canner. And then voila! Beautiful jars of crabapple jelly!

So, if you find you or your neighbors find yourself being pelted in the head or tripping over crabapples why not put them to good use and try this old fashioned delight!

Preparing for the Solstice

The solstice has always been a special time for our family and right now things are abuzz in preparation for our family summer solstice celebration. Last year we had a bit of a rocky start when I fell off a chair while trying to hang herbs to dry. My rear hurt for weeks! Hopefully, this year will be a bit less ouchy!

While we don't have a specific plan yet, we have worked on a few things and should be finishing up and finalizing this evening. We will also be having airbnb'ers tomorrow night, so I'm hoping that they will participate as well.

Since the solstice is traditionally a night for fairies, Will and I made a needle felted Solstice Fairy, in brightly colored sun-like hues, out of wool last night. We will also be making Solstice Cakes for Will to leave outside for the fairies tomorrow night.

I also made a small knit beehive and bumblebee to put on our nature table since honey is a common symbol of the solstice and the bright yellow color makes us think of the sun. I think the bumblebee still needs some wings, so I might needle felt some on this evening.

Jacob has been working hard to get the area around our fire pit cleared away, and in traditional solstice style, we will be having a small bonfire outside that evening. He's also hoping to get out our camping gear and roast a chicken and some vegetables in the dutch oven over the fire, and of course, no bonfire would be complete without hot dogs and marshmallows.

In addition to fire and fairies, no solstice would be complete without herbs! I will be getting up early tomorrow morning to harvest as much as I can and then Will and I will finish up tomorrow evening. Some will be used to store for winter, some will be used to make a wreath for the door and some will be bundled together to throw in the fire.

I'm thinking I may put together a list of herbs and their meanings and have each person pick out at least three that are special to them to put into their fire bundle. This would be especially fun if our airbnb'ers participate. I will probably write a small secular ritual based on letting go of the past and moving into the future that we can do tomorrow evening with our herb bundles.

Hope everyone has a beautiful solstice! If you're local and don't have any plans feel free to bring a dish and a drink and come and hang out! If you're not local, but have special plans or posts about the solstice I'd love to hear about them, so please feel free to post any links or plans in the comments!

Happy Solstice!

Surprise Chickens!

What a surprise we had yesterday! We'd been inside most of the day and had heard the chickens loudly fussing, but upon looking out the window we could see nothing except a bunch of fussing chickens. Until we went outside to do the evening chores! Lo and behold! Our Ameraucana had hatched 8 chicks!

Which she had proceeded to deposit in my flower garden! Oh, my goodness!

We moved mom and babes to an enclosure all by themselves so that they would be safe and upon inspection this morning they were all tucked up under her wings safe and warm.

I'm so excited that we have baby chicks since it's a somewhat rare occurance for urban chickens to be able to hatch babies! Jacob, who has had chickens all his life and lived on a farm for quite some time, had never actually seen a clutch of chicks hatch. He was pretty proud of our mama hen last night!

It will be interesting to see what kind of egg layers these chicks turn out to be since their dad is a Welsummer rooster, whose breed lays brown eggs, and mom is an Ameraucana who lays green eggs. I'm sure I will be updating more as the little fuzzballs grow up!

WIP Wednesday

I've been rather neglectful of WIP Wednesday, but I think now is the time to resurrect it.

This week's work in progress is a quick little slouchy beret. I've been knitting for everyone else lately and now it's time to do something for myself. I've let my hair grow out long, but for practicality purposes I keep it up in a bandana most of the time, so I'm hoping this will give me a nice alternative to a ratty old bandana.

Walnut Cottage Canning Contest

Canning season has officially started at our house and I'm sure it has in your house as well. While I can't do a canning contest based on taste until they develop computer taste-o-vision I can, at least,  judge on some visual factors. So with that in mind I present to you Walnut Cottage's First Annual Canning Contest.

There will be three categories:

Prettiest Packaging - Go wild decorating your jars! Think outside the little piece of gingham fabric that one adorned the tops of winter gifts of canned goodies and come up with your own ideas! Take a picture of your decorated jar and tell us what you did with it. Remember to keep it safe and non-toxic!

Best Winter Stash - Who can squirrel away the most and best winter provender? Take a picture of your stash with a list detailing what your stash consists and post it!

Most Creative Recipe - Come up with the most creative recipe that you can while still staying within the boundaries of safe food preparation. Then post your recipe or ingredients to show us what kind of yumminess you came up with.

 

Rules and How To Enter

• Anyone can enter the contest. All you need is the desire and ability to can your food.
• In order to enter you can do any of the following:
• Write a blog post explaining your entry complete with pictures and information on the category you are entering. Then post a link to it in the comments section.
• You can also post you pictures and information on our Facebook page if you do not have a blog and then share your post on your own wall so that your friends can see your entry.
• You may submit one entry per category, but each person will only be eligible for one prize overall.
• Contest will close at 11:59pm E.S.T. on Sunday, September 30th. The winners will be announced and prizes sent out on October 5th.

If you are participating please feel free to right click save the contest button and post it with a link back to the contest page. I would also love it if you would share the contest information on Facebook, Pinterest or any other social media sites you might be part of.

Prizes

First Place

 First place winners in each category will win a 6 piece cotton napkin set from Solstice Fiber Arts with their chosen initial or symbol and color.

 

Second Place 

Second place winners in each category will receive a set of 4 felted fruits in a cornucopia just perfect for a harvest time nature table!

 

 

Third Place

Third place winners in each category will receive a box of liquid fruit pectin, a box of regular mouth canning lids and a box of wide mouth canning lids to get you started on next year's canning.

 

 

Happy Canning! Check back here often to see any new entries!