o christmas tree

Tonight I was standing in the laundry room looking out the window waiting for they dryer to buzz. I watched the snow come down and was amazed at how quickly it was accumulating. Honestly, the snow is so ridiculous at this point that it's sort of laughable.

Sort of.

But then I saw our christmas tree. We had hoisted it into the grove in January. And since trees are heavy, it didn't get very far. I saw that tree and decided she wasn't done shining yet. I thought it would be funny to set her up in the front yard for all the neighbors to see, a christmas tree lit up on April 22.  So I told Ivar we should go out and decorate our christmas tree again.

Ivar loved the idea. He happily put on his boots and joined me in this adventure. And he said, "remember we get our christmas tree with Mark and Kathy and Baby Isaac!" Ivar doesn't seem to forget anything. We found the tree stand in the garage, grabbed the light box off the shelf and walked around the house to find the outdoor socket.

The tree is half brown and half green. And it is lovely. I hope my neighbors enjoy it too.

We are ready for spring here. Don't get me wrong. But this did seem like an appropriate way to make lemonade out of these lemons.

Once Ivar went to bed, I went out again and got some pictures when the sun was going down.

  

And now I just took this picture out the window. The snow had me down earlier this afternoon, but this christmas tree has brightened my evening. 

Elsie is 9 months old

Oh Elsie. I love you so much. You are a happy girl. Your personality is showing itself more and more. You started talking a lot more and you like to scream and screech. It is obvious you are proud that you can be loud. You talk in your crib for a long time before we come to get you, practicing your sounds. You now can crawl and sort of inch worm your body around the house. You are fast, and gates had to go up immediately once you learned you could move.

You smile a lot and often scrunch your nose and eyes when you're really happy. That's my favorite, because then we get to see all of your teeth. (all 4.5 of them.)

You say, "Mama" clear as a bell and I love it. You can pretty much get me to meet any of your needs with that magical word. It stops me in my tracks.

You do fine in the nursery at church, and fine when others hold you. But if you sniff out that I am about to leave you, you can get quite nervous. As in a big lower lip and crocodile tears ready to pour out. That's okay. I know we're good pals and it's hard to be apart.

You are a tremendous eater and love taking a bottle. I like giving you your bottle because we just stare at each other and smile. You put your fingers in my mouth and scratch my cheeks. When you're ready for sleep you are happy to be set in your crib. Your bear from Ruby and pink blanket from Mimi are your favorite things to snuggle with in your crib. 

When you're out of your crib you adore your baby doll and the monkey Katherine gave you. Both make you shriek with delight. 

Elsie, you are sunshine to me.
I am so pleased I get to be your mama.
And overwhelmingly grateful that you are my girl.
Love,
Mama ma mama

switching rooms

We switched rooms with Ivar this week.  I was so excited to move into the bigger room. So happy at the thought of having a closet in my room, a reading chair, creating a little haven where I might find some quiet. 

Well, it was a nice thought. But it didn't work...at all. Ivar's new room is the only access to Elsie's room. So when Elsie woke up each morning, she woke her brother too. Who happens to be very crabby if he doesn't wake up on his own. And naps were terrible too. Ivar goes down before Elsie for the afternoon nap. So I had trouble sneaking Elsie into her crib without waking Ivar. 

After five nights of miserable sleep, Rory announced that we would be switching rooms again. It was the right thing to do. Our kids are good sleepers, and this just wasn't worth it. So we took our queen bed apart again, moved the mattresses back through the doorways, lifted the crib through both doors, switched the dressers, brought all the toys back to the big room and switched all the wall art again. 

I have a feeling we won't be switching rooms for a long, long time.

*And yes, that is Ivar's crib. The boy hasn't tried getting out yet, and based on stories from other parents of kids not staying in their beds, we decided to keep Ivar in his crib until he's 17. 

...Or until he actually attempts to get out.

so much maple syrup

Well this has been quite the year to try our hand at making maple syrup. The conditions have been perfect, the sap is plentiful and we'd consider our first year a success. Rory has collected over 90 gallons (!!!) of sap and we can hardly keep up with the evaporating. We found food-grade 5 gallon buckets to keep the sap until we can get it boiled down. On Saturday night I came home around 10:30 after meeting my sister for dinner. I turned into our lane and found Rory next to his fire, waiting for the sap to boil down. It was quite the site.

We're mostly excited because this much syrup is going to mean lots of gifts for family and Rory is hoping to bottle enough to sell. We have learned a lot about Minnesota Grown at our farm class and are really excited about the thought of recouping some of our costs this first year.

body image and baby bangs

We came home from the library with this book in the stack. Ivar loves it and constantly asks if we can go there. He likes the idea of going swimming.

I love the book because each page is like body therapy for me.  Each mom pictured seems to say to me, "it's okay. we've got little kids. life is hairy. you're doing your best. we're all okay. besides, you are most beautiful when you are taking good care of your kiddos"

The words are few in this book, but very accurate. And the facials on the mom are awesome. She looks tuckered after this adventure.

Having babies take a toll on the body. And being chronically tired often results in lots of high sugar "quick energy" grabs. And having kids can lead a mom to many thoughts about her identity and all that it means to be "Mama" but also all that it means to still be "Becca." And as if all of that were not enough, she's given a mohawk of whispy hairs, right in the front of her forehead, called Baby Bangs.

I never got baby bangs with Ivar. But I'm making up for that now. I saw a friend post a picture of her baby bangs on instagram and it made me laugh out loud. Thought I'd post my magnificent front poof in an attempt to laugh at the mess I have to deal with each morning.

feathers and chicken feet

The girls are growing. They change every single day. Mostly they're loosing their fluff and growing feathers. But I cannot believe how quickly this happens. Feathers literally grow overnight.

We got our chickens from a woman named Theri who sells fresh eggs as well as baby chicks. I feel so fortunate that we found her. I wrote to her about how the chickens seems sort of restless in their box and she emailed right away explaining that they would go through a stage of being kind of spazzy. That they're teenagers now and will be a bit flighty no matter how we've spoiled them. And that they get restless too because they do a lot of itching when their feathers come in. It was helpful to know. We've exchanged many more emails and I'm learning so much.

If you're considering ever getting chickens, I highly recommend Theri. Her email is: prairiechickpoultry@gmail.com 

Here's Butterscotch Cookies. Look at how she's growing! 

And now, for a chicken confession:
I have this funny thing with the chicken feet. I can handle the flapping, the pecking and the pooping. But I guess I sort of have a fear of chicken feet. Talons, if you will. I can't look at them when I'm holding the chick. I can obviously have them touching me. They're soft and sort of tickle but if I look at them while holding the chickens, I freak out a bit. As in, Ivar comes running asking, "Mama, are you okay?" And Rory asked if there was a crow in with the chickens because apparently that's the kind of sound I make when I look at the chicken feet on my hand.  They're sort of wormy to me. Reptile like. And I have a real fear of reptiles and... worms.

Anyway, it's silly. In my head I can recognize how ridiculous this is.  But in the moment I pit out a bit and have to look at something other than those little feet resting on my hand.

So now you know. I am phobic of talons. And the reality I am trying to wrap my head around is this: they are only going to get bigger.

the chicken coop

Rory is a doer. I've said that many times before, but it always amazes me to watch him in action. We knew we were going to build our own coop, but then Rory decided he would draw up his own plans. This is the final sketch and it will be awesome. At the moment he is out in the garage, finished with the base and legs and now beginning to build the walls. I'll have much to report on Monday.

Speaking of chickens, I entered Legos into a chicken competition. No fighting in this one, just good looks. If you would, stop by the Backyard Farmer to vote for Legos (it's a great blog...I just started reading). In all honesty, the chicken Legos is up against is really cute too (her name is Ugly Stepsister. So funny.) so it will be a tough win. But with your help, little Legos might stand a chance. Go and vote now.

On Monday I'll be back with pictures of our chickens at three weeks old. I am taking pictures of them once a week...I can't get over how quickly they change.

And speaking of change, Elsie is also growing before my very eyes. She is army crawling with great speed and now says, "Mama." It's my favorite sound in the world. She screams with delight at the chicks and if close enough, tries to grab them. It's pretty adorable all the way around: chicks cheeping and babies squealing.

sugar snow!

There is a scene in Little House in the Big Woods, the first of the Little House books, where a late-season snow caused the maple trees to produce a whole lot of sap. They called it Sugar Snow.

Well, we woke to snow. And it's still snowing as I type this.

At some point this morning we noticed our sap bags almost overflowing. Sugar snow! Even though the sap had mostly dried up since our last collection,  we decided to leave the taps a few more days to see what the colder temps and snow would do. Turns out, they would do a lot. Rory collected 19 gallons of sap today! The previous one-day record was 7 gallons. There was so much sugar water and the 4 gallon bags were refilling so fast that he had to go buy more containers to hold the stuff until we have the chance to boil it down.

We're very much ready for springtime. But I have to say, having something so exciting happening today made the day feel sort of special. Which is the positive spin I'm throwing out there, because I'm starting to realize winter doesn't much care that I think she should wrap it up. Until then, we'll be happily boiling down sap into syrup, glad to have something fun to do outside until these 6 inches (and falling) of snow melts away.

And for a super great read, go and read Hootenannie who likens April weather to a hormonal teenage girl. Hysterical.

so many hopes and dreams

I remember before we even found this ten acre farm, Rory was reading a book for hopeful hobby farmers. And he read a paragraph to me about how the first year you get your place you're going to want to do it all. You're going to want to take every single hope and dream you have in your head and get er done. Asap. But how this simply isn't possible. How lots of dreams on a hobby farm need to be phased in, given a multiple year plan.

But can I tell you what? This is hard to do. Oh man, it is so hard. All we do around here is talk and dream and plan. We have aerial shots of our property that we have blown up poster size, and we stick post it notes all over it with hand drawn pictures of trees for an orchard, or grass for a pasture. We have pictures of what this farm looked like forty years ago that give us a better sense of the history of this place. Rory took the above picture while going to each corner of our property and taking a picture towards the center. We want to document our place like this four times a year. Just to track the changes. And over the years, we'll be able to see all sorts of before and afters. The field pictured here is about four acres. It was corn this last year, but now we're making new dreams for this dirt. Maybe alfalfa, clover and timothy. Maybe hay or wheat. Maybe prairie grasses and wildflowers. Time will tell.

So we talk and we dream and we wonder. And you know what? It's not all going to happen in one year. That we know for sure. But as we continue to spend time outside I am certain that a whole lot is going to happen this year.

We were out in the grove yesterday and filled three big garbage bags with pop cans and trash. We pulled out an old garden hose and a broken end table. We found a lawn chair, some tires and the topper to a pickup truck. I had the loppers and was cutting a path as we worked our way deeper and deeper into the trees. And Rory was announcing each random item he found in our surprising woods.

And at the end of the day, looking at the work we had accomplished I realized that not everything will get done this year, but let me tell you something: a whole lot will.

And it's getting me excited.

how to make maple syrup: step by step

A few weeks ago I told about how we tapped our maple trees. We ended up tapping twelve trees and out of those twelve, nine produced sap. We're new at all of this, and not completely sure why some trees produced more and others less, but we were thrilled by the amount of sap we were able to collect. Being novices, our expectations were low.

In all we gathered about twenty gallons of sap. Rory built an evaporator with cement block and a metal grate. We ordered buffet table serving dishes to boil the sap in. They worked well. I think Rory would say they were hard to carry when full of sap and sort of difficult to maneuver while on the fire, but for the price, they did the job very well.

Rory kept the fire hot, and I kept him company. We decided to wake up early Sunday morning and evaporate before the kids woke up. We sat by the fire as the sky brightened while sitting in our camping chairs. Felt a lot like camping, actually. 

Rory let the pans boil down for a long time and then consolidated them into two pans on the fire. When he had only two gallons of sap left in the buffet pans, he poured it into our canning pot and brought the sap into the kitchen to boil on the stove.

We purchased a Hydrometer, some cool tool that told us when the sap had boiled to the correct syrup consistency. Rory would fill the metal vile with syrup and then place the thermometer into the vile. When the syrup was not ready the thermometer would sink to the bottom. But when it was getting close, the thermometer bobbed in the vile.

Thirty-two on the scale (the red line) is the magic number. That's a pretty awesome picture, right?!!

Using cheese cloth, Rory filtered the syrup into mason jars. And then I staged the jars for a photo shoot in front of my pretty dishes.

The night our first batch of syrup was completed Rory and I stayed up way too late and ate eggos at the kitchen table. I think it will forever be a favorite memory of mine, and probably the most appreciated and classy eggo I've ever enjoyed.

easter from Josie's point of view

While hosting Easter, my niece Josie grabbed my camera and took about a hundred pictures. What a gift to the host! I love going through them, seeing the day from her perspective and how she chose to capture each part. She's got a cool eye for pictures...very candid and artsy.

we got baby chicks!

Well, we have some introductions to make. These sweet chicks have joined our family and we love them to pieces and one day, we may eat them in pieces. But until then, I'd like to introduce you to six chicks. 

First, meet Eggs.

Before we got our chicks we asked Ivar what we should name a chicken, and he replied quickly, "Eggs." This sweet chick is called an Easter Egger, as she has the blue egg gene. How fun would that be?!! Naturally, when we learned this fun fact, we decided that she would be Eggs. (Note: there is a 50/50 chance each of these ladies is a rooster. Time will tell.)

We love Legos. I know you're not supposed to have favorites, but we sort of do. On Saturday, just before we left to pick these birds up we asked Ivar for another name. He was playing with his duplos at the time. The awesome part about Legos is that she is one of those chickens with the feathery/furry legs! She is a Cochin Chicken, and super sweet to hold.

Ivar loves for me to retell him stories from our day. This is a huge part of our bedtime routine. So when I tell the story of our chickens I tell him, "...And then the four of us drove to Zumbrota and got our chicks from Theri." We found Theri through Craigslist after realizing many places have a minimum order or 25 chicks. She is wonderful and had such an amazing variety. I would have never imagined we could have such unique birds. Zumbrota is also a feathered foot Cochin.

Ivar named this one too.  It was a random name choice, but actually fitting in a way since on the way home, with chicks peeping on my lap, we stopped at McDonalds drive through. We told Ivar that out of respect, we wouldn't order chicken nuggets. The girl at the window asked how our day was going and we told her awesome...we got baby chicks. She was super excited and asked to see them, so Rory held the box tipped through the window so she could see.

Hamburger is a New Hampshire Red and after the photo shoot today Ivar has lengthened Hamburger's name to Hamburgerpoopedonthecarpet. That bird will never live this one down.

Our very favorite line from the Little House books is in Farmer Boy. Almonzo is six and oversleeps one bitter winter morning when he is supposed to be doing his chores in the barn. His mother yells up the stairs, "Monzo! You be sick? It's 5:30!"

Rory and I wake each other up with this line quite often. At like 8:15.

Almonzo is a Welsummer and will lay dark brown eggs.

I got so excited to name our chicks after I read a friend's blog post about her chickens. Her kids named the birds, and one of her boys named his Chocolate Chip Cookies. I laughed out loud. What a great name.

This was our last bird to name and with such lovely butterscotch coloring, I thought this bird might be excited to know it has a buddy in another state.

Butterscotch Cookies is a Buckeye.

We are in love with these birds. It's hard not to get attached. They currently live in the downstairs bathroom in a cardboard box with a heat lamp. I spend a lot of time holding them. Rory is drawing up plans for the chicken coop. And Ivar keeps asking for a butterscotch cookie.