Being Busy

 It's that time of year again when there is an abundance of fruit, berries and vegetables. I have been very busy making jams and preserves with everything and anything I can find.  

We went berry picking in the forest the other day and came back with a kilo of blueberries and a kilo of blackberries. It is a joy to be able to go for a walk and come back with such delights.  I made more blueberry jam, and I picked some raspberries to go with blackberries and made a very delicious mixed berry jam.     

This year I have made all the favourite vegetable preserves from pickled gherkins, tomato chutney, sweet courgette relish, plum chutney and a special request from my big girl, piccalilli. All the recipes can be found under Preserves.  

Girls and Skirts

My girls love skirts and I was inspired to make them both a new one.  I thought it would be good to follow a pattern  and try something new. There are so many different patterns for different shapes and styles, I found it hard to choose. Finally I found a good one and ask my little girl if she liked it, and it was a winner.  After starting, I realised that it is not easy to follow a pattern in Dutch.  I asked for help with translating it, but it was just too difficult to understand what to do. So I abandoned the pattern and tried to work it out on my own.  
I got there in the end but it was not what I really wanted.  The waistband was too big and the skirt kept falling down.  I decided to take it apart and started again.  This time I used  big red elastic for the waistband and just sewed on the fabric.  It was very easy and it looks really nice.   

My big girl wanted to have the same but I couldn't find the right colour elastic. Instead, I copied a skirt she already has. It has an elastic in the waistband and it also has a petticoat with a bit of lace sawn on.  She loves it so much and they are both very happy to have a nice new summer skirt for this lovely hot weather.

   

Planting food

I just love spring, its my favourite season and after such a long winter we are really enjoying the warm sunny weather.  The girls and I have been very busy planting and sowing vegetables and playing outside in the garden.

I planted potato's and onions and sowed carrots outside and the girls sowed pumpkins, courgettes and cucumbers in pots. We put them in the greenhouse and are waiting for them to grow.

My little girl really didn't want to go to school today so I got her working hard in the garden.  To me its very important that my girls learn about food, how its grown, where it comes from and how its cooked.  So today we had a home school day learning about her favourite vegetable, cucumber.   

To the right are the potato's and in the middle the carrots and onions.  When the pumpkins, courgettes and cucumbers are big enough they will go on the left.    

A sprouting onion

We haven't planted a lot of different things because we get most of our vegetables from a CSA.  (CSA stands for community supported agriculture to find out more Click here) In short we pay annually for locally and organically grown vegetables and go to the field to harvest them our selves.  This is a really great way for kids  to learn about food, how its grown and in which season.  But it is still nice to grow our own, so a few things we do.  

Next job is the herb garden!  

Spring green soup

Nettles and cleavers growing together

This is a twist to the nettle soup recipe I put on here last year.  I have been looking forward to making this for a while now and I finally I got to make it yesterday. I added some cleavers  which  are growing next to the nettles, it is a really good cleansing herb that helps to clean the lymphatic system.  I also put in some fresh lovage, this is one of my favourite tasting herbs and I just found some new shoots coming up in the
herb garden.  


The nutritional value of this soup.

-Nettles; (Urtica dioca) Blood tonic, hypoglycaemic, antiseptic, circulatory stimulant.  
-Cleavers, aka goosegrass; (Galium aparine) Lymphatic alterative, detoxifier, astringent tonic. 
-Lovage; (Levisticum officinalis) Mild antibiotic, diuretic, antispasmodic.  
 So all in all a very heathy soup and quite perfect for an internal spring clean. 

My well washed spring greens

1 leek
3 potatoes
2 carrots 
2 handfuls of nettles
1/2 handfull of cleavers 
A few fresh lovage leaves 
300ml of chicken stock

Fist fry the leeks and then add the potatoes, carrots and then the stock.  Let it boil for awhile until the veg are soft then add the spring greens and boil for another 5 minutes.  When it's cooked blend it all together and eat it with hot butted toast.  

frozen chicken stock in the pot

My girls just love this soup and its a really good way to get some vitamins and minerals in them.  

Enjoying her soup

Tip: don't forget to use gloves when picking the nettles, and if you don't have any then use a plastic bag.  

Spring!

This truly feels like a never ending winter.  Its been so cold for so long now, and in the yurt it has been quite cold in the mornings.  We are all absolutely looking forward to some warmer weather.  
Today I made a little spring table in the hope that it might inspire the spring to come.  

The other day the girls and I each painted one of our chickens eggs to hang on the spring table.  We had a lot of fun and they brighten up our cold mornings.  

Happy Easter!

Winter weather

It has been a long time since I posted anything, so I thought I would put a few photo's on here to get us in the mood for the weather to come. This is now our 3rd winter in the yurts and there will be a few more to come.  We will start building our house at the end of the month but for now we are snug and warm in our little yurts.     

The snow stays on!

Tomato Chutney

I have always wanted to make tomato chutney, but I have never had enough tomatoes. I only make preserves if there is an excess of something, otherwise we always try and eat everything fresh.    But this summer there was an overload of tomatoes, they seemed to be coming from everywhere, and with them I have made lots of tomato chutney. This is the recipe I used.  

Pencil pots

A week ago I was having what I call a 'bad mama day' This is another way of saying I was grumpy and fed up.  Normally when I am feeling like this, the girls become very demanding and they  wind each other up. With my man away there is no one else to defuse the situation. When this happens I need a focus and I told the girls that they had to stay in their room and play with every puzzle they own and just make a mess, I tried not to think about the consequence of that until later. 
My focus was to channel my frustration into something creative.    So, I got my sewing machine out and got busy.  I decided to make some pencil pots to put all the loose pencils and pens in.  This is how I made them.  

First I cut out a circle from the felt and then a strip as long as the circumference of the circle. I then pined the two bits together and sewed them up.  














I did the same with some cotton fabric and placed the felt pot into the cotton one. I then folded down the top, sewed around the edge and the pot was finished. 

They can be all different shapes and sizes in order to fit different pens and pencils.  

After the first one I got very excited and wanted to make more.   


These little pots make it much easier for the girls to see all their different coloured pencils and crayons.