Has been a busy Summer in ways, not really so much with a packed schedule but in terms of keeping up with everyday life. My garden turned in for the season after battling draught and heat waves and chicken nibblings, so there’s been little to no harvesting this year save 6 small jars of blueberry plum jam. Ah well, that’s okay.

The highlights of the last few weeks have mainly centered around the ending of Summer and beginning of Ethan being enrolled in the 3-morning/week Waldorf kindergarten here. Lots to do before school starts, and when they say it will require community involvement they mean it! From parent work days (painting, polishing, scrubbing, you name it) of the school house and gardens, to home visits (yep – the teachers care enough to visit the children’s homes before the school year starts), as well as a (voluntary, of course) parent/teacher workshop this past weekend. Up this week is a “kindergarten evening” and a “family potluck” School for him begins next Wednesday. Agh!

Suffice it to say, I’m a bit immersed in this world right now. It is difficult for me to articulate just how much inner transformation has happened for me since I moved here, and especially this Summer. Having the TV/movies off the majority of the Summer has been incredible, and has created so much more time for meaningful books and yoga and a prayer life and time outdoors. I have really strengthened my will, my resolve, to tackle things in my lifestyle to reflect a more mindful and conscious approach to every day life. Rather than lofty goals and dreams for each day, I may simply get my bed made, make meals for the kids and I, read a book, knit for ten minutes, keep up the dishes, etc. These tasks in discipline are often more than enough to keep me busy as well as balanced, and leave me more open to observation of the kids and the needs of the family around me. I think the task of a homemaker really is one of balance and harmony, which is so hard when in my selfishness I would rather spend the day doing things I enjoy as an individual and just sort of treat myself to whatever I fancy doing. The kids bring me back to reality: boy, I really want to sit down and paint for an hour — oh, yeah, I need to wipe Verity’s butt. I’m learning, (really, I am!), to accept this and appreciate it for all of the wonderful lessons such a life brings me. I know the mothering of little ones is not forever, and at this time my highest calling is to be present to this home – most importantly its inhabitants- by creating a soulful, flexible, unhurried, creative, nurturing space for us to flourish. Not easy, but so worth the effort. And so much comes not in technique or knowledge or talents, but in simply doing the “inner work”; growing into the person whose light and love permeates whatever is around them. A lifetime’s journey!

The weather here in Columbia has improved quite a bit, with a few days of sweet reprieve here and there where highs are in the 70’s and 80’s (instead of 100’s). I have enjoyed the transitional phase into Autumn and look forward to Fall — HOWEVER, I feel this year that I have no sense of restless anticipation coupled with discontent and fatigue over the previous season. Rather, I feel I lived deeply into this Summer. I did a lot of hiking and lazy days at the park in the creek and ponds; I caught a lot of bugs (vicariously through Ethan!), ate a lot of Summer fruit, really let it all sink in and be experienced with gratitude. I felt myself submerged in water, felt hot sand and rocks on my feet, got a great tan on my shoulders, and wore out my flipflops. After the Sensory Delight of Summer I feel satisfied and calmly ready for the seasons change around the corner.

We head to Fayetteville for Labor Day weekend – we can’t wait to drive up that long gravel driveway to my aunts house and sleep in the dark, absolute quiet of her country house (so opposite our inner city house, with the constant cars, fire engines, and dogs barking, lol). Will be so good to visit with sweet friends and family before returning home to officially begin the school year.

Sorry no pictures in a while – it is so easy to leave the camera behind when trying to conscientiously live in the moment with two young children. I’m sure I’ll find a muse someday soon and pick up the ol’ Nikon again

I plan to be back this week with some insights from the parent/teacher conference last weekend – if I can even mentally and emotionally unpack it enough to share here. We’ll see…

Until next time, enjoy your Summer ending- live it to the fullest!

So after a quick stop by Uprise for a cup-o-joe, and a morning of cuddling and reading at the library while the thunderstorms passed, we headed back home for an overcast evening of gardening in the freshly wetted soil.

I’ve been making the preparations for weeks, waiting for a day with some time, some shade, some breeze, …some motivation… to really hit the backyard with all I got. Boy, did I!

Mama (tha’d be me) got out the saw, cut the lumber, made a new, double-height raised bed for our Fall/Winter garden. I dug deep, adding the compost, manure, coffee grounds, and a bag of peat moss I have collected these last few weeks. I laid down a system of pipes to get oxygen deep into the soil/compost, and fixed PVC hoops over the top to create a mini green house during cold months. The kids enjoyed digging and mixing, shoveling compost from the hen run into the bed. They also spent some time shredding lots of scrap paper I had been collected, then worked it into the soil and wet everything up real good. Then of course, they helped me add in a jar of red worms and watched them dive into their new home!

We have a weekend of muggy heat ahead, so I covered this new raised bed (currently a compost bed until Fall) with the now emptied plastic bags of manure, placed some bricks on top, and now that sucker is ready to heat up. I’m determined to have a productive Fall/Winter garden this year, maintaining home grown greens year round.

The Summer garden, meanwhile, did not have this kind of a head-start, so was off to a late and resource-less start. Besides a small harvest of strawberries from the strawberry patch, I am growing some sugar snap peas, lots of onions, about 5 tomato plants, as many peppers, and a smattering of squash and cucumbers. Mixed into these beds are some chives, marigolds, sunflowers, etc. Those beds are full of compost from the city, with some homemade compost and peat moss mixed in, but they are shallow and the ground underneath them was pretty much clay, so I can see already the result is slow growth, which may not produce much yield now that July/August (aka Drought Season) will be soon upon me.

Not that I’m giving up on my summer garden. On the contrary, I’m giving it as much as I can. Today I added some fresh compost and covered with the white confetti of mulch from the shredded paper (deflects the intense sun, and so pretty too!). I also added the tomato trellis and built a sort of A-frame of spare wood slanting down the other side which I can use to grow the cucumber/squash plants up. I guess only time will tell (bugs, heat, poor soil conditions – I’m not super hopeful but doing my best!)

Each year the adversity I have found in my gardening endeavors has taught me a lot. Your garden is only as good as the work you put into it, especially around this part of the country, and especially if doing it all organic and with very (very very) little cost. I think that I am at last understanding the importance of healthy soil, and that the real work of the gardener is cultivating soil (the plant then more or less takes care of itself!). Maintaining that balance of microbes and nutrients, water retention and good drainage, attracting the right critters and repelling the wrong ones (and keeping your harvest from being eaten by little bunnies, birds, etc) –

- Ahhhh, it can be overwhelming! And a lot of work (oh yeah, I’ll be veeeerrrrrrry sore tomorrow from all the sawing, hammering, screwing, climbing, bending, shoveling, stomping of today’s gardening adventure). And if you’re like me, having not been brought up learning about growing your food and are set off into the world with a major brown thumb, it also takes a lot of planning and thoughtfulness. And reading of books.

Little by little, season by season, I learn more and get better connected with the earth and its food growing capabilities. For one thing, I’ll never again mistake a squash bug for anything but my archenemy and promptly … bludgeon them on sight.

{{Before I go on, let me take a moment to apologize for the wordy length of this post. Sorry. Also, you will be rewarded with pictures at the end. But don’t skip ahead just because I told you that, because the content explains the pictures. (gotcha!) }}

I began reading some really excellent financial books that have given me some valuable ideas and resources, but most importantly the validation that living a life of frugality is indeed a freeing and valid choice (however un-American it feels at first!). The topic is exhaustive so I won’t go into all the details, but some resources for me have been primarily Radical Homemakers (my go-to!), Your Money or Your Life, and recently The Scavenger’s Manifesto, Made from Scratch and the Tightwad Gazette (check these out at your library!). There is so much about it that fascinates me as a subject matter and lifestyle choice, as it takes a certain amount of confidence to transcend the idea that voluntary simplicity (and foraging/scavenging/bartering/waiting/and often going without) is a deprived, resource-less, bohemian (though this word might actually be appropriate) life of poverty (or worse – laziness).

I can acutely feel the pressure, on many fronts, to just forget this whole business of living simply and just get a job job, put Ethan in public school, and force myself onto that hamster wheel because what I’m faced with if I do not do so seems too exhausting, lonely, challenging, and doomed-from-the-start. But I have never been one to unquestionably accept the status quot solution without at least researching and utilizing some alternatives that don’t compromise my heart’s values and desires.

To view the lifestyle instead as a challenge in resourcefulness and ingenuity and invention (the daughter of necessity?), a call to radically reject the consumer cycle (as the Scavenger Manifesto calls it, the “Want-Get” mentality) of materialism and waste and the myth of “choices”, and to capitalize on the lack of excess as a catalyst for gaining increased self-sufficiency and experience.

It’s been heavy at times, as I sit with the reality of compulsive choices I have made, the “treats” I wanted to “deserve” over the years and the financial pressures we have incurred both from our own choices or those of the “down economy”. While I have never had what I would have called affluence, often forgoing large things like extra vehicles or a house with more space than I need or vacations or store-bought clothes, I had to recognize that we had made choices with where what little money we had fell between the cracks (where did it go?!) on silly things like convenience food (i.e. “oh, we are going to the library, we’ll stop and grab bagels first”), expensive cheeses (next I need to learn how to be a foodie on a budget!), library fines, shipping fees, so on.

Our plan to move to Columbia and for Chris to take this flexible, enjoyable, sustainably-minded, locally-owned job was a calculated risk and I am in no way making it work without flaws just 4 weeks into this venture… *yet*. For our entire marriage I have worked (I’ve held a job since I was 14, for that matter), I financed over 90% of my private-education undergrad degree with grants/scholarships and work credits, and since having children I have been the main earner generating income from my own at-home business. Yet, for a variety of reasons I have shared in the past on this blog, we have been taking steps to switch these roles for sometime now, as continuing down that path left me stressed, strapped, unorganized, unhappy, and unable to homeschool. So I knew there would be sacrifices, but the idea that I could creatively figure this out was incredibly motivating for me and continues to be as I think of new ways to live and think about the choices we can make to realize this “dream” of living simply, learning more, feeling more enriched and fulfilled by a life of time and resources to live generously — while making as a household income less than we have EVER earned before, even while in college.

So rather than recount the unexpected bills and financial upsets to our last 4 weeks (though there have indeed been those too!), I want to move on to the fun stuff, the things that I am finding just slap-knee exciting about learning to be a tight-wad!

First of all, I think being frugal is a lot easier if you live amongst other frugals; in community with swappers, food growers, barterers, pickers, foragers, forgoers, and coupon-clippers. It kinda validates the lifestyle, which is definitely counter-cultural otherwise. I think these folks exist just about everywhere, you just gotta find them — and be willing to be their equal.

Secondly, there are a lot of hidden perks to being frugal that, if you can let go of the concept of “Want-Get” mentality, are pretty rad. Clothing swaps with stylishly-dressed donators are fun and easy. Garage sales and “free bins” amaze me. Bartering goods and services is highly effective. Learning a new skill so you don’t have to pay some one to do it for you is way more satisfying. Paying only a quarter of your previous monthly vehicle gasoline budget when every one on the news is lamenting the climbing gas prices is reassuring. Having even just a few bucks left over at the end of the week, rather than going into more debt, is rewarding. Learning to wait for something you would have just ran out to get as soon as you “needed” it, like a washer/bike/freezer/radio/whatever until you have saved for it and found the right deal (hopefully free!) fosters a feeling of contentment and relaxation, a mindfulness about accumulating goods. Keeping track of receipts, organizing bills, and forgoing “treats” is, well, it’s growing up, (and it also reducing a BUTTLOAD of anxiety at the end of a pay cycle! who knew? )

I will be posting again a weekly series I call Simple Pleasures – a record of things that were bartered, gifted, thrifted, made, grown, saved for, or given away that brought pleasure to my life each week:

Things like…

A family walk to the public library (which boasts NO limits and NO late fees!), where we forage for edible dandelions and violets, sight a groundhog, and work off belly fat – who needs a gym membership when you have legs?!). Our ten dollar weekly budget that gets us 2 gallons of raw milk and 2 pints of raw cream (homemade cream cheese!) every Monday on our neighbor’s doorstep. The bags FULL of amazing books, music and documentaries we bring back from the library. The free use of internet around town. The free movies we rent for family movie night at 9th Street Video because Chris works at Uprise. The free (local) coffee both Chris and I get from Uprise while renting the free movies at 9th street, on our way to getting the free books from the library. The knitted gifts to trade for babysitting. The free movie tickets on our date night and the $5 (total) we spent for the organic wine and beer we enjoyed while watching the movie. The outings of packed lunches at the park and nature trails just outside the city. The Easter baskets filled with sprouted wheat grass (seeds a gift from a friend) and sales on the organic bulk bin candy which filled saved egg shells from breakfast. The downright gourmet meals that can be made with a friends’ surplus garden grub and bulk natural foods from Azure Standard. The upcoming “Columbia’s Really Really Free Market” and the free backyard chicken processing workshop I will attend in the coming weeks (bringing home the bird for dinner!). The fishing I will take up this summer to catch a good supply of trout and the harvest I will reap and keep from my garden beds, whose compost was generously gifted to us in exchange for a half dozen of our chicken eggs and the tomato and pepper starts donated to us from the local urban farms surplus, (thank you Luke!)

… you get the idea. SIMPLE pleasures that offset some of the difficulties we have faced, and brought meaning and blessing to my life in often surprising ways.

It’s really quite fun to get even crazier!

This little home economics notebook from 1917 that I found at a thrift store was really inspiring. I’m fascinated with homemakers of the bygone era, who made due with as little as 1,200 yearly salary. Had to take a picture (but not buy! lol)

A virtually free (did have to spend a little money on the sweets), hand-made Easter tradition…

Easter brunch of whatever is on hand – quail eggs (a gift from sweet friend Natalie), fruit, plain yogurt with raw honey…

A simple park outing can be entertaining, fun, and even a bit of a break… at no cost at all!

Who needs a mall playground (without actually intending it, we haven’t stepped foot in a shopping mall in over 2 years and counting!) when you have nature trails, dandelions to blow, rocks to throw in a creek, and bridges to run across?!

I typically walk out of the library with armloads of books, as there are no limits, no late fees, and a great selection. This week’s focus was homeschooling resources…

Free meals during his shift, Chris enjoys free freshly made artisan sandwiches with locally raised meat sources, along with a glass of organic beer, 5-6 times per week. I have been impressed with how this has reduced the amount of groceries we go through each week! (gosh, his job sure sounds terrible, doesn’t it? )

Family dance jams are a nice way to pass the time…

Foraged edibles from the front yard – violets, dandelion flowers and leaves – beautiful, free nourishment

Diggin in dirt rarely gets old… finding worms, black beetles, grubs and cicada’s is just too fun!

“new” used books from the library used book sale

Tire swings from the tires just replaced on the car – endless hours of entertainment (I’ve lovingly nicknamed this swing Jenna the Babysitter)

This old suitcase ($1) and milk glass saucer (.25) from the end of a garage sale now serves as my undergarment storage and homemade salad dressing dispenser (respectively)

Big pile of great Spring sweaters (free from a clothing swap)

$1 garage sale vintage lamp base that just whispers my name…

Doll clothes found in a “free” basket!

A frugal “pantry” of bulk foods, collected eggs, and home brews…

A vintage typewriter for my prose (free in exchange for me learning to tinker with it and get a new ribbon)

I won’t share the whole fiasco today involving my car and a moment of OHMYGOD-it’s-dead, followed by my OH-DUH-I’m-just-out-of-gas realization after I had dramatized the situation and shed some tears and all that embarrassing stuff. We’ll just leave it at that.

Suffice it to say, I seem to be hitting the same road signs again and again lately (wait, am I going in circles?!), and most of them go something like, “CHILL OUT. TRUST ME. I HAVE A PLAN!”

But I digress.

In other news, we welcomed 4 new members (1 is hiding in the other corner in the photo below) to our urban homestead today, and I can’t say enough about how cute, cute, CUTE these little gals (hopefully!) are! Ethan summed it best when he said, “Oh my gosh, I don’t know but every time I look at them it’s like I’m going to cry because they are just so cute!”

Meet…

Stormy, the barred rock chick, smallest of the quartet, who is spunky, loud and dodges being held like the plague. Her eggs will be brown, similar to our current laying hens, Magic and Daffodil (a Rhode Island Red and Gold-Sex Link, respectively).

Nutmeg, who narrowly escaped the hatchery box to head home with our lot when Chris chimed in that this was his favorite and we kicked out a cute little copper-colored one to make room for this little speckled Americauna. All I can say after careful observation is that Nutmeg is a good eater. I’m not surprised her and Chris felt a connection.

Lulla, another Americauna whose coloring looks slightly like Nutmeg, but with unmistakable chipmunk-like markings rather than speckles (at least thus far, on her chick down – the eventual adult feathers could be quite different!). Ethan named her Lullaby, which we shortened to Lulla. She is robust and docile and seems to mind her own business.

And lastly, my personal fav, is Celeste, a little fluffy angelic cream-colored Americauna with nice green hues to her legs (a sign of good “easter egg” blueish/green eggs which are the signature of Americauna’s, like Nutmeg and Lulla as well). She happens to be the biggest (or just fluffiest) of the bunch and is quiet, sleepy, and seems to not mind being held in the least. She falls asleep in your palm almost immediately. I’ve seen her prance around and eat her fill, but her general demeanor is calm and chill.

I just love chick-raising time of year. This is the 3rd time we’ve brooded chicks and it’s beginning to feel like an annual rite of passage in April. I love watching them, so little for such a very short amount of time, as they provide endless entertainment. Soon they’ll be sprouting larger, darker feathers and looking all gaggly like awkward teenagers and attempting to fly out of their brooding box.

I am crossing my fingers that this group continues down an all-female path (roosters are a no-go in city limits). And I can’t wait, CANNOT WAIT I TELL YOU, for the day that I reach into the nest box and pull out a colorful selection of brown and easter-blue eggs!

I have a special affinity for easter eggers (Americauna’s or Araucana’s). Last month I purchased a dozen eggs at the co-op from a local farm, that upon opening I was enthralled to find every single one a various shade of creamy blue and green hues! I waited a week before cracking them because they were so beautiful. And the yolk is always extra yellow, making scrambled eggs look sort of neon! Even after eating them, I saved a few shells to make some dear friends some beeswax egg candles:

Other than bringing home baby chicks today, I’m happy to report that we got our bazillion loads of laundry done at the laundry mat yesterday (no more fights with the drying lines – for now), and we spent a few hard-working hours in the sun yesterday putting up the chicken run. We clipped the hens wings (they’re rockin’ flyers, but they need to stay lower and confined to their run, for our neighboring yard is full of dogs) and made an area for the compost heap and hanging feeder, as well as a new nesting box made of a storage tote with a hole cut out of the lid (non-wood means less worry about mites). We also recycled one of our used tires as a dusting box for the hens (nice size and the “lip” on the top helps them bathe without kicking up too much dust into their face). They were flippin’ out to have a sunny day to throw a new bag of sand around and scratch up a newly forming pile of winter leaves and rotting kitchen scraps. Seriously, who needs TV when you have these critters to watch?!

Ethan is ever enjoying his new mama-made hoola hoop:

Ver sporting her mama-knitted “spring” cap:

And enjoying the tree swing immensely:

Spring has sprung in our yard with a lone yellow tulip:

Ethan finding himself a bright palette of Springtime colors in his watercoloring:

I snagged the best swing jumping photo ever, of Luke and Natalie our Columbia friendies, at our picnic last Sunday at Lake Stephens Park:

Pots of coffee are now brewed in this old stainless steel percolator that I snatched up for 20 bucks at a resale store several years ago and just recently decided to put to good use. Still works great! (and check out the lovely jar of raw cream from a local pastured dairy farm – just $1.75!)

Another highlight this week was a rare seafood dinner (seafood is a little pricey when you are landlocked as we are here); I scored some wild caught salmon (frozen, but beggers can’t be choosers, eh?) on major sale, so this evening the kids and I feasted on blood oranges and rosemary salmon fillets with amaranth and steamed edamame to compliment.

So that’s the newsy news. I am going back to my books and raw milk maple steamer, while listening to the sound of wittle bitty chirps float through the air…

For those of you who are yet to be informed, I’ll try to backtrack quickly and sum things up: back in January we took a trip up there at the leading of some sweet friends whose family we know from church here in Fayetteville. A fun, flexible full-time job for Chris opened up in the coming weeks at a bakery downtown that focuses on sustainable and local ingredients. We went back up a couple of weeks ago to look for rentals and found an older, small (750 sq ft I believe), 2/1 house (but to be fair, also has a basement, shed, fenced backyard, and hardwood floors) in our price range (to my knowledge, the lowest rent I have ever lived in, even as a child), located just over 2 miles from his work (so he can bike most days and I can have the car for me and the kids again, woo hoo!), just under 2 miles from the main library and the waldorf preschool, and 2 blocks from the farmer’s market. Oh, and we can have 6 urban backyard hens – enlarging our flock

So we are preparing not only via packing, cleaning etc, but also by going over some possible challenges and adjustments we’d like to take this opportunity to make.

For one thing, our current house this passed year is the first single family dwelling we’ve ever had (previously duplexes and co-housing were our residence), and it is also the most square feet we have ever lived in (a 3rd bedroom). It hasn’t been all that great, to be honest. It’s a lot to clean and most of it goes unused. I couldn’t help but feeling like, so long as I wasn’t needing the extra space for childcare income, it really wasn’t part of our “living simple” plan. The old Less is More, thing. I have, as you may know from reading this blog any amount of time, been attracted to the “tiny house” movement and peruse my copy of “Little House on a Small Planet” often dreaming of the day we can move into a yurt in the pacific NW or a derelict cottage in rural France SO – while one perspective might be that I’m moving into a drafty tiny house in mid-Missouri, I’m looking at the upside; a cozy space with less to clean and more in line with our values of living small and treading light on the planet. In addition, it meets our requirement for affordability, which allows us to find work that doesn’t compromise those values. (Aside: like the Radical Homemaker 4 tenets: community, family, social justice and ecology – any job outside the home must honor these, which is a lot of the reason we felt we should take the slight paycut for Chris to take a job at the bakery close to home, rather than his current job in AR which is 40 minutes away in a cubicle in the logistics industry.)

Okay, so we are all caught up now and I’ll try to get back to my point.

This transition is in some ways another phase of our journey towards sustainable, simple, intentional living, and with that step we are considering our lifestyle choices, and how we use our time and money is one of the main concerns. With a small single-earner income, no health insurance, all credit cards closed (our plastic-free 3 year anniversary is almost here!), every little bit counts.

One decision we’ve made is to not have internet when we move. Our average bill for highspeed internet is currently around $70 a month, which will be about 6% of our spendable income. Since I currently plan to not work from home any substantial part of my day, we no longer NEED high speed internet for my business, and the only thing we do use it for beyond that is watching shows on Hulu after the kids go to bed, or streaming movies on Netflix (we don’t have cable). Basically, for entertainment, mixed with a little educational documentaries here and there, (as well as my favorite internet uses: browsing recipe sites, blogs I like, and checking my email and facebook, all of which I can do quickly with routine visits through wifi cafes or the library with my i-touch).

I must admit, I’m not sure how it will work (!). I won’t see the finale of the few shows I watch until they are available next season to rent on Netflix (I know, I know, boo hoo – but ya know, its an adjustment!) And if I have a sick day, snow day, rainy day, etc in which movies becomes my only aid in entertaining the kids, we won’t have the internet (which we currently hook up to via HDMI to our tv as a second monitor) at our fingertips. Hmmm… am I talking myself out of this? lol

No. I know it will be good for us, and what’s more, we are reallocating a portion of that money towards something more valuable – a family membership to the ARC (columbia’s recreation and activity center) that is conveniently located 2 blocks from our house. With the remaining 20 bucks we’ll put towards an outing once a month (like the Missouri Botanical Gardens, zoo, museums, etc).

I know this will be a challenge for our family, and we are not big TV viewers as it is, but having it for a few hours a week is one of the few “luxuries” we can afford and I’m wondering how we will adjust to being without it, particularly Ethan who is majorly into on-screen entertainment and games.

But as I was saying, we’ll have the ARC – the classes and indoor track and pool will be great escapes that are much healthier for us than a few hours of tv a week! Next, I’m sure we’ll get even more into our weekly library visit where we haul 50 or so books out at each trip. And finally, I think we’ll have more time to spend in our hobbies and crafts, gardening, reading, as well as keeping up with chores. When I think about the money AND time we will be saving, I admit I get pretty excited!

And this brings me to some broader reflections I’ve had of late. One of the things about trying to live more simply that I’ve enjoyed over the last, oh, 4 years or so, is the challenge of my personal comforts and the sense of accomplishment over realizing I can do without things I once couldn’t have imagined. Choosing to be without a car (when we have access to PDX mass transit), or sharing 1 (living in a small city as we do now), or learning to cook from scratch, or figuring out how to allocate money from eating out/entertainment towards whole foods and self-made fun, or learn skills we would have needed other people to do for us in the past. We’ve had to get creative with buying from furniture, clothes, and decor from thrift stores and craigslist so we could avoid cheap products at the cost of unethical labor at Big Box stores. I’ve taken on coordinating the local natural food bulk buying drop so I would have access to warehouse direct prices on “real food”. I have been more committed to the tenets of attached parenting and home learning because I have to take a closer look at why I feel like “giving up” when things get tough and increasing my knowledge and network so I don’t burn out.

But briefly, in the interest of full disclosure and lest I mislead with some ideological and euphoric description of what I have experienced thus far: sometimes this journey SUCKS. Somethings work and somethings don’t, and working through the stress of being financially strapped (not always by choice! -and losing a job/clients is never fun, btw) or the piles of wet clothes in the living room or the whiny kids on a rainy day with no escape from the house, or missing out on things I would have liked to do because of no vehicle, or worrying about how to the funds to get my kid’s cavity filled – oh yeah, its not always “simple” and definitely not always a breezy summer day of homemade bread and sippin tea!

But somethings are simple, and more importantly, everything is meaningful. I’m learning a lot, I feel more equipped, and I am looking forward to the next phase… the unplugged (internet-less) tiny house in Columbia

Clever marketing tells us to go out and spend money on these things to fill what is missing, to make our homes feel like something called life is happening in them. Genuine experiences have been replaced by photo ops at consumer venues (ice skating rinks, Santa’s lap at the mall, pumpkin patches in church lawns). These aren’t all together “bad”, and certainly lovely family memories can be had there, but there is always something our souls know is missing – like we are replacing something whole with something inherently broken and lacking. When we step back and look at the mirage of consumerist seasonal products and manufactured experiences, we know that deep down, it just ain’t the real deal.

I don’t believe the answer is to opt out of seasonal celebrations, to turn a nose up at the consumerism in defiance and solidarity, but rather to strive to reclaim the natural and simple ways we can celebrate holidays and changing seasons with an acute sense of responsibility to the earth and its inhabitants.

To do this, simply look around. Use your senses to take in what is happening in the less manicured spaces where you live (a preserve? natural forest? perhaps the wild corners of your own backyard!) and think outside the box about ways to bring those observations with you indoors, particularly through activities that the kids will enjoy doing with you. Allow the colors to inspire you; are they bright and lively Spring crocuses or the total simplicity of silent white snow?

Think about experiential ways to celebrate: learn a new seasonal song as a family, or start a seasonal garden. If you anticipate cooler weather this winter, don’t forget to make provisions for the birds and squirrels that will be coming through your property in search of a winter meal and fresh water. The memories you and your children will have from these non-consumerist activities will honor them throughout their lives.

A few things we have done in our home and at the playschool this month include:

1. Pine cone bird feeders: cover pine cones with peanut butter and sprinkle on bird seeds – even the youngest children love this! Hang from a tree branch near your window for some bird watching in the coming weeks.

2. Fall leaf prints: on your nature walk, collect fallen leaves and flat seeds, feathers, etc, and bring home to place under thin paper – even fall colored tissue paper – and rub with the side of a crayon — a beeswax block crayon works particularly well for this. The result, Ethan says, “is like magic!” You can hang these as is, or cut them out and glue to construction paper and laminate with contact paper to make Fall place mats. Or hang the tissue paper cut outs in the windows for the sun to shine through and illuminate the leaf prints. So many things you can do with them and they are truly a beautiful way to preserve Fall leaves.

3. Tissue paper window stars: So versatile, so pretty, and so simple. Bring nature’s palette into your home with these window stars you can create with the kids. There are a variety of tutorials online, simply google “Waldorf window star tutorial” to find some.

4. A Nature Mobile: Hang a branch wreathe with yarn or string and from it attach items you collect outside. This ever evolving chandelier is a simple and inspiring conversation piece through out the year.

5. A Nature Table: No waldorf home could be complete without one, but these should really be found in every home. Any small table or shelf will do, and the only rule of thumb is to again keep it simple and natural. We hang silk clothes of colors we see outdoors, decorate with found or made items to reflect what is happening seasonally. Our Fall table currently features a moss covered window sill (real harvested moss was found at the craft store!) with needle felted and wooden mushrooms popping out. The seasonal tree is adorned with Fall leaves we collected last year in Portland and dipped in all natural melted beeswax to preserve them. They are just as beautiful as ever and look great on the seasonal table without getting crinkly and brown. There are so many ways to “do” a nature table, just let nature inspire you and you are well on your way!

Our seasonal tree with beeswax dipped Fall leaves amongst the Michelaemus angel we made and a found blue jay feather

Needle felting wool into seasonal items is a fun and easy way to add nature-inspired figurines to your nature displays. Our squirrel, who we named Klickitat, loves to munch on our found acorns and tucks himself into his cozy pumpkin home each night

6. Log Boats: A favorite year round, log boats can be extra pretty when adorned with a sail of Fall leaves. Be sure to schedule a trip to a creek or water source to watch your ships set sail

7. Plant a Fall Garden: Now is the time, if you haven’t already, to turn over the spent late Summer garden, empty that compost, and get those Fall plants growing! Last week the play school kids helped me work the soil of our pole bean raised bed and planted two heirloom varieties of lettuce along with some red russian kale. If you live in milder climates, Fall is a great time to grow just about anything! Check your local nursery for tips on what to plant in your area, and when. Get those hands dirty!

8. Nature People: Use found items on your nature walks such as nuts, leaves, and moss, to put together little arrangements of nature people for your Fall displays and play time. The possibilities are endless!

9. Learn seasonal songs together: This month our circle time includes two new seasonal songs, October and Autumn Leaves are a Falling. Other resources include books like The Singing Year and CD’s such as Come Follow Me. We can’t get enough!

10. Go outside! Nothing can replace the magic and wonders found outside, particularly in wild spaces. Go on nature walks, visit state parks and local farms – whatever you do, just GO OUT and OBSERVE! You never know what will happen (If you’re feeling particularly nature handicapped and need help introducing your family to the outdoors, a few books I really enjoyed are Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, I Love Dirt!: 52 Activities to Help You and Your Kids Discover the Wonders of Nature, and A Natural Sense of Wonder: Connecting Kids with Nature through the Seasons. Remember: Consume Less, Share More — check out your local library!)

HAPPY CELEBRATING!

I began watching kiddos for the play school (Home Grown Playschool, a.k.a. my little brain child) these last two weeks — which is a like, well, a whole other story. (in a nutshell – finally got the OK when I least expected it but when I really needed to make decisions about staying in this house or leaving, and so far it has felt really good to put my creative energy towards this and to spend my mornings and early afternoons singing, eating, crafting, and playing with a table full of kids!)

Simultaneously, Chris has also landed another temp job, one that pays the same but is a little further away, which isn’t ideal but definitely better than no income, amen?! We are quickly finding our rhythm again as a family and taking each day, each moment, with as much graceful stride as we can muster

October brought us some chilly weather which was AWWWsome, but this weekend looks like the mid-80’s again. I’m kind of in shock that this area has seen zero leaf change at this point, and I’m itching to wrap my dreads up in a wool tam and not let them out until Spring Alas, some mornings this week it sure did feel like Fall!

During homeschool and/or play school, we’ve been learning about trees and nuts, St. Francis (and generosity to animals in general), Michaelamus, etc etc (can one realllllllly list all that you do in a home school in 3 weeks?) for the last few weeks in the play school. We’ve crafted silk and feather Michaelamus angels, gathered nut people (mine was a wizard bird, see below), pine cone bird feeders, a fall wreath, so on. So much fun stuff this time of year!

Ethan’s been in a World Dance class with about 20 other kids ages 4-11 or so, and he’s having a blast. They have a recital in December so for now its mainly about learning some moves and following directions, and for Ethan the concept of paying attention and giving respect to the teacher while also learning to be comfortable in his body and movements (which I’m beginning to delve more into as I start learning about the waldorf/steiner “Eurythmy” concept and how to integrate that into our daily circle time).

This week my highlight was going (for the first time) to the Botanical Gardens of the Ozarks, which was so very well done — I was totally impressed. The children’s garden was so cool and we ended up staying for a couple of hours after the “Little Sprouts” preschool program just to play and walk around. Some pictures of that:

We have also emptied our compost and added it with some straw to the empty patches in the raised beds where we retired the dried up corn and squash and beans. The kids and I worked the soil for a few days before planting some kale and lettuce as the summer garden transforms into a Fall garden.

May the season find you all warm, healthy and rested – inside and out!

It’s not that something tragic happens or anything actually “bad”, really. It’s just that, even when you are feeling groovy, things around you just are sorta … not flowing?

Maybe I am posting this because it is August. August is, I admit, my least favorite month of the year. I love love love the Fall, Winter and Spring, but Summer has a few highlights and then by August I just want to fast forward to late September, Harvest Festivals and cool nights…

There is truly so much beauty and inspiration in life, but there are times that you have to look a lot harder than normal to see it. I can show you pictures of the kids and the garden, of tea cups and candles and butterflies — but what is beyond the frame of the camera lens? Do I have bad days? A messy house? Longings unfulfilled? Bugs in my garden?

Well, folks, I DO! And despite that I do deem my life magical and charming (thanks mainly to my sweet children, with little help from me!) – there ARE things outside the frame.

So today, instead of the usual Friday “This Moment” of cherished memories, I will let you see beyond the frame into the everyday not-so-quaint parts of my life.

I have dishes that pile up in just 6 hours:

and clothes that have been sitting in the washing machine for several days because I haven’t had time to hang them on the line:

kids who strew their clothes all over their room after you just put them away:

These bugs:

Who do this to all my beautiful corn:

A whole jar full of these bugs:

Who do this to my pumpkin patch:

Flowers that fade much too soon:

And kids who pick their nose:

Not to mention, of course, the AWESOME fact that I hear a litter of raccoons in my attic at midnight:

So, dears, take heart — and I will try too. Maybe if we can embrace life’s messiness and disappointments we can be truly grateful for all we have.

There’s pics to display, stories of success and failure to share, news to report.

These weeks have included:

- lots of wrestling with the same ol’ life lessons we are too hard headed to “get”

- Ethan turned 5 years old.

- I realized he is a “spirited extrovert” as described in the book “Raising a Spirited Child”. With a sigh of relief I felt more equipped to handle our differences and celebrate who is he is.

- A sweet visit from my sister and her fam

- A heat wave

- Lots of bugs on my vegetable beds that have brought me much frustration. Gardening is supposed to be fun, isn’t it??? I have a nice huge bowl of cayenne/garlic tea I plan to spray all over them tomorrow, so we’ll see if that helps.

- The decision that we want to leave AR when we “get our ducks in a row” to do so. Either back to OR, our “soul home”, and then eventually a village in Burgundy France

- A new show we enjoy together in the after hours of parenting : DEXTER!

- A wee-hours-of-the-morning, spontaneous prayer combustion, awesome girls night with the “Radical Homemaking” group

- Three days of fatigue to recover from the wee-hours-of-the-morning girl night.

- Two of my chickens were killed, leaving a lone Daffodil.

- We trapped the likely culprit, a raccoon, only to accidentally kill it by leaving the cage in the sun during a heat wave for a few hours. Also, it left behind some family members in the attic, which has Ethan terrified and a very light sleeper – a bummer.

- Laughter, tears, prayers, meals, talks, books… life.

I guess that about wraps it up. Until next time…

All the places I thought I might like better, upon further inspection, turned up similar or worse heats, humidities, and mosquito counts in the summer. And those that didn’t, well then your facing deep, long winters or some other trade-off – at the very least, land that is not in our price range (at. all.)

So many things to think about when your dream is to operate a sustainable mini-farm for the rest of your life

The Ozarks feature, among other things, beautiful rolling hills– very green this time of year. Driving out to Cave Springs to get my mother-in-law from the airport reminded me of that. There are many, many natural spaces we have yet to find time to go explore – so many rocks unturned. It would be silly of me to think we’ve been there, done that, with regard to NWA only 4 months in! Surely I have more sticktoitness than that?

I do miss the city life of Portland sometimes – the tea houses, yoga studios, parks, libraries, biking over the Broadway Bridge (PURE BLISS), or catching the MAX (though I always forget to think about the times I sat at a bus stop in tears of frustration and shivering from the cold because I missed the bus! lol) I also, of course, miss some dear friends I made there and the general vibe of the peer group and inner neighborhoods one could find community in.

Adjusting to a new place is hard, as we anticipated. Things don’t always go as smoothly as we hoped (like opening the waldorf-inspired playschool and having a less than idyllic relationship with my landlord as a result). But there’s a lot to be said for sticking things out, for staying put, and for making the best of where you are.

Sometimes the very things I am moaning about are the things bringing another person joy. The Ozark Homesteader was just writing about gardening in this heat, seeing it as a sort of detoxing season for sweating out impurities. I often come across, in my research for a “better place”, folks dreaming of a place with rolling hills, lakes and fireflies, and I’m reminded that indeed where I am can be any one’s “little slice of heaven” given a positive perspective (maybe even Pollyanna attitude) towards it (just as I did so love the misty rain of Portland that others not from there thought would be a major bummer). That’s why some love Maine, others Montana, others Georgia, others Alaska – I think you gotta soak up the good from where you are and find sustainable workarounds for the rest!

I think the bottom line, or a few of them, is that the region we are in offers the community of family and friends we were hoping for when sitting at our lonely Thanksgiving table in Portland, as well as the affordable land and scenic views we’ve dreamed about. The rest is just not that important.

Our mini-farm (my retirement plan, to be implemented within the next 9 years) is something I continue to learn more about and adjust to my particular area more and more as we recognize the need to stay put to realize our goals.

And many of you are like me – dreaming of the Someday House in the Someday Place living the Someday Life. And that’s all well and good, but know that so much can be done right where you are. From backyard gardens, chickens and beehives; to spending more time with family, writing, drawing, or singing; or learning to knit, make bread, or ferment Mead: many a learning experiences can be had before you are ever on that Someday Land.

Here’s to dreams and good ol’ fashioned contentment!