Eco-living

Homemade Maple Syrup~Simply Delicious

/ Lee Reynolds

“The simple things in life hold our best memories.”

We eat a lot of pancakes in our house. Well, truth be told we also eat a lot of waffles and french toast too. My kid’s favourite thing is to have breakfast for dinner, so if my husband is out of town, I try to brighten up their lives and make things a bit easier on me too by making pancakes or waffles for dinner. I remember as a child, when my Dad was not home for dinner, my mom used to make a large pot of blueberries with dumplings and I thought that was the biggest treat in all the world.

When I opened the fridge recently to find an empty syrup bottle, I had to become really creative, fast, which also opens up the opportunity to find satisfaction in the solution. Sadly, to a degree I think our North American culture has lost that art. We live with so much affluence that when the bottle is empty, we just make note to buy one the next time we are out shopping. But, what if there wasn’t a store nearby to purchase maple syrup?

What do we do?

Just a bit of history first, I’m not normally the pancake or waffle cook in our household. Nope. That would be my dear husband. He has been making pancakes since our oldest was just a toddler, over 20 years ago. He makes pancakes, like I make cookies or soup. He just pulls out all the ingredients and starts pouring and mixing like he knows the perfect combination. And he does. He also knows the exact temperature to cook them at…this is an art!

Not me, when I make waffles or pancakes, I have to refer to my favourite recipe. I used to rummage around looking for our family’s pancake recipe, until I blogged about it last year. Now, at least if I can’t find that little loose piece of paper, which has pulled away from the recipe book that David’s mom gave him when he left home, I can at least find it on my blog. Whew. Because I would hate to disappoint my little people…that is, if I am home alone and having to make pancakes.

While I was contemplating what to put on our waffles recently, and yes, fruit and jam are also options around here, I remembered reading a large family blogger writing about making homemade syrup. At the time I thought, why in the heck would I make my own syrup. After all it’s pretty cheap to buy it in the bottle and my own homemade probably would taste terrible anyway. But that was before I had a stack of waffles slowly growing and warming in the oven and I knew the kids would not be impressed if there wasn’t any syrup.

Between batches, I googled homemade syrup and finally found a couple that I thought sounded simple and easy. NOW that is what I’m looking for in my life. The fact that what I came up with when I combined a few recipes and it turned out to be delicious too, made me so happy. I was tickled pink. An expression my mom may have said.

Plus, there is a whole other side benefit that I LOVE!!!

It’s good for the environment. At least to the degree that every 2 weeks we aren’t using a new plastic bottle of syrup which makes me soooo happy. I love when I can cut down on packaging and also learn to make things myself which is the ultimate in being sustainable.

If you are interested in making your own syrup, that is better than anything you will find in a brown bottle from the grocery store, then check out this recipe. It’s simple sustainable, and yummy.

Hope’s Pancake Syrup

Ingredients

2 cups of water
1 cup of brown sugar
1 cup of white sugar
Dash of salt
2 tsp of maple extract (vanilla if you don’t have maple)

Directions

Bring water to boil in a medium saucepan and slowly add the brown and white sugar. Mix until dissolved.

 

Turn down to low and stir for a few minutes.
Add sprinkle of salt.

 
 
 Take off heat and add the extract. Cool and pour into a jar…..or do what we did….pour the syrup on the waffles/pancakes while it was still warm.

The first time we used the syrup it was quite runny but it thickened overnight in the fridge and was more the consistency of our bottled syrup.

The kids all loved it but I started thinking about the syrup that I would sometimes buy at our local Super Store. It has 15% real maple syrup in it. Would it even be better if I added some real syrup to my homemade mixture?

When we went to Costco recently we purchased a large jug of real Maple Syrup. We added 1/2 cup to the above recipe and now I have homemade maple syrup with almost the same amount that the expensive maple syrup from Super Store has in it…and guess what? It cost WAY LESS. Although, I have to say that I thought the syrup I made without the real maple syrup was GREAT and didn’t taste much different.

When I told my sister J, about my recent discovery she told me that our mom used to make syrup from left over coffee of all things. I guess she learned a thing or two as a child living in the depression.  I can’t recall ever eating mom’s coffee syrup but then I don’t remember her making pancakes ever. When she married my step-dad, Bud, he did all the pancake cooking on Sunday mornings. It was his thing to do, just like it’s now my husbands tradition.

The more things I learn to make from scratch, the happier I am. I like living a simpler life. I like knowing, when we run out of things, like syrup, that I can make something even tastier than what I buy in a plastic bottle full of preservatives and we can be greener along the way.

So while not eating pure maple syrup isn’t maybe the Canadian thing to do, it is the simple thing to do when you have kids who love their pancakes and waffles. So the next time your syrup bottle is empty, know you have the ability to make life sweeter.

 Victoria and Kate with their favourite breakfast or dinner…waffles with syrup and fruit and smoothie loaded with fruit

.

Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.

Blessings from Hope

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle…the three R’s

/ Lee Reynolds

Three’s…. a Magic Number!

Three isn’t just a magic number when it comes to children (although, I like the number 8 too) but it’s also the magic number when it comes to the three R’s. The R’s that stand for, Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.

With earth day only a month away on April 22, 2015, I’m really thinking how important these three little words are for our environment. Ever since I was little, it was always important to me to keep the earth clean but it wasn’t until we added these last three children to the world that I really started to realize the impact each one of us has on our planet. Also, how much of a difference, each of us can do to heal it as well. We are powerful.

I’ve been talking a lot about de-cluttering lately on my blog but I forgot to mention that there is a specific intent with regards to this action. And that brings me to the thought of intention.

Intention is the starting point for any action. If we aren’t clear about where we are going, how we want our lives to look, how in the heck will we ever accomplish our goal. I suppose I’m taking a few steps backwards but after writing an email to my sister this morning, it occurred to me that I hadn’t been clear about sharing the idea that the first tip towards Minimalism, is INTENTION.

You have to decide what you want before you can move forward and it’s the thing that will keep you going on your darkest days. I know this from my years of trying to conceive these last three beautiful children . I knew that if they were to manifest in my life, that I had to become clear on what I wanted. What was most important to me and have laser focus with that regard.

Everything I did in the 5-7 years it took to bring these little people to “being,” moved in the direction of my intended result. And voila…although it wasn’t as easy as ever saying that lovely, easy french word for, TA DA! they are with me at last.

Just as is my desire to make this world a better place. For me to heal my part of the planet by taking care of the earth. Taking care of my family and ensuring they are nourished, loved and raised connected to nature. That is a BIG goal, I know, that is my intention… but the baby steps to get there are to attend to the three R’s.

And that is where reduce comes in this month. I’m reducing our footprint like crazy. Putting anything that we don’t LOVE, and we aren’t USING, out into our garage. I’ve already started to make piles of things that we will sell and anything that doesn’t sell, we will donate. That ensures others can reuse what we deem not necessary in our lives any longer.

The second big pile that is accumulating, is my recycling pile. Things like an old computer keyboard, a computer monitor, glass jars, cardboard boxes that we have been storing things, that we never look at in,….well you get the picture. These items can be recycled and turned into new products for others to enjoy.

These are the steps I’m taking and the long term vision is becoming clearer and clearer as I remove needless belongings from my sight lines. How does one downsize when you have a large family? As I wrote to my sister this morning, you can’t  downsize the kids, although since our family ranges in age from 24 down to 3 year old twins, I can see that in a short amount of time our family will be a lot smaller. Already our oldest is out of the nest and living and working overseas. Our oldest son is on his last legs studying Environmental Science and our third oldest, is starting his out of the nest venture with his first year of University almost under his wings.

In time, we will have a smaller family living under our roof on a day to day basis so there is still time for me to create a simpler family life. Do we need 3000 square feet of space, plus our Hobbit’s hollow (developed crawlspace) any longer? I’m leaning in the direction of No being the answer.  I want our life to have a sustainable back bone, supporting  creativity, where more peace and fulfilment flourishes. I’ve set a goal of completing our de-cluttering project by the end of  March. I know kind of  optimistic of me, but hey, it’s spring break for the next 2 weeks and that means no driving kids everywhere., and gee, maybe do you think they can assist me?  By the time earth day is upon us, I will have accomplished my three R’s with regards to our earthly possessions.

And then WHAT? My intention is to use another R word. The fourth R stands for the word, RENOVATE the Reynolds family. I want to renovate my life. Changing and reworking where we live, how we spend our time, what we eat, who we share our life with and what we think……or not…as that is also my intention.

Do you want a RICHER life too? Do you think the seeds for that are in living with less? Have you joined me on the road to minimalism? Of course, that could look very different to you. It could mean that you are selling your beach house or your second car. It could mean that you are reducing the hours that you are working each week, or even if you are able, dropping down to a one income family. You could be choosing to buy all your kid’s spring and summer clothes at the local thrift shop, instead of at the mall this year, choosing to reuse instead of purchasing new.  There are so many ways that we can live the three R’s to live rich. I hope to talk about that more in the weeks to come as these insights appear.

If you are starting to revamp your life and doing the three R dance, please share in the comments below….or supply any inspiring words to support me on my path.

Before I say goodbye,  I wanted to share this great You tube video that will get you up and dancing. The little girls and I put our “Jack Johnson CD ” this morning (we found it when we were decluttering our CD’s and DVD’s yesterday and we LOVE IT)  as I was airing the laundry out to dry. Did I tell you that my dryer broke down? Yes, again. They don’t make appliances like they used to and I’m ready to chuck my fancy red LG set, except that for 4 months of the year it’s snowy and cold here. Today though, it’s  a nice, breezy, spring day and doing the three R dance feels GOOD!  Knowing that I’m helping the earth just a bit today by letting my clothes air dry makes me happy….and the earth is helping me too. There is lots to dance about isn’t there!

 

If you can’t see the above, click on this hyperlink, Jack Johnson’s The three R song“The 3 R’s”

Three it’s a magic number
Yes it is, it’s a magic number
Because two times three is six
And three times six is eighteen
And the eighteenth letter in the alphabet is R
We’ve got three R’s we’re going to talk about today
We’ve got to learn to
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
If you’re going to the market to buy some juice
You’ve got to bring your own bags and you learn to reduce your waste
And if your brother or your sister’s got some cool clothes
You could try them on before you buy some more of those
Reuse, we’ve got to learn to reuse
And if the first two R’s don’t work out
And if you’ve got to make some trash
Don’t throw it out
Recycle, we’ve got to learn to recycle,
We’ve got to learn to
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Because three it’s a magic number
Yes it is, it’s a magic number
3, 3, 3
3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36
33, 30, 27, 24, 21, 18, 15, 12, 9, 6, and
3, it’s a magic number

And dance around your living room, singing with your kids, your dog, or just grooving on your own two feet.

Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.

Blessings from Hope

Homemade Ice Cream Cake~ Bath Salts

/ Lee Reynolds

Welcome December and my busiest month of the year.

Welcome to The Spa at Orchard Ridge

As if this month isn’t busy enough, we have three children
who all have birthdays in the next couple of weeks. We eat a lot of cake this month. Clark our oldest son, will turn 22 on December 20th and Harrison, will be sweet 16 on December 19th. I’ll never forget when I went into labour with Harry, the day before his older brother was about to turn 6 years old. It was getting close to midnight and I told
my Doctor to break my water to move things along, as
I wanted our oldest son to have his “own” birthday.  As it turned out, Harrison was born before midnight and when we told Clark he wouldn’t have to share his birthday, he replied quite graciously, that he wouldn’t have minded sharing his birthday and having Harrison was the best birthday present he would ever receive.

When we found out we were expecting Grace, we were just so
thrilled that we hardly blinked when we found out her due date was December 18th. I actually thought it would be really cool
to have three children’s birthdays in a row but she had other ideas and arrived 2 weeks early on December 5th. She will turn 12 this coming Friday but last weekend, we celebrated by giving her a Spa Getaway party.

I had so much fun planning her birthday and that is also why I wasn’t blogging last week. Sadly, I didn’t take enough pictures to share today. I wasn’t really thinking “blog opportunity” when planning and throwing my daughter her birthday. However, I did take some pictures of the Ice Cream Cake I made and a few pictures of the Bath Salts that the girls made on the morning after the sleepover. I thought you may like to see them and have the recipes. The Bath Salts are easy, fun to make and I personally think they would make great gifts for teachers this holiday season.

The night before the party, we took Grace to her voice recital where she sang a cute Hawaiian Christmas song which set the perfect mood for returning home to make an ice cream cake.

The cake takes about 15 minutes to make. Max. When I think of all the years we used to buy our children their frozen cakes in the past I cringe. The last cake we had, was ridiculously expensive and had freezer burn so I’m glad to have found a great recipe to share with you now. Okay, maybe being totally sustainable means you have your own cow and you can make your OWN ice cream, etc, but hey, making things yourself is rewarding and does make you feel independent of others in many ways. Plus it’s just plain delicious. I know from past experiences, children who visit us and taste our own homemade Ice Cream cakes are amazed, asking several times, “and you made THIS?”

Hope’s Ice Cream Cake

1 box of oreo type cookies
1/4 cup melted butter
1 carton of ice cream
possibly two if you want two flavours or colours
Whipping Cream
Anything you want to garnish the cake with

 

The first thing you need to do is set out your ice cream of choice and let it sit and soften while you are preparing the crust. Grace really likes mint, so we purchased Breyers Mint Chocolate chip Ice Cream. I find that a large container is enough, although as you will see later, I often use a small amount of vanilla or chocolate to bring the ice cream to the top of the cake pan.

To make the crust you need a box of cookies. Typically, we use Oreo type cookies but our local Super Store has a store brand this time of year with candy cane filling in the middle. It’s perfect for the season and goes delightfully with our mint ice cream.

Set aside several cookies, which can later be split apart or broken up to garnish your cake. Then grind the rest of the cookies with a food processor, or you can put them into a freezer bag and break them up into fine crumbs with a rolling pin.

Put the crumbs into a mixing bowl and add 1/4 cup of melted, cooled, butter. Mix really well until well combined.

 

Press the cookie mixture into a spring form pan. I find there is a fine line over how hard to press the crumb mixture down. If you press too hard it can be really difficult to cut later, so press just enough to spread on the pan evenly.

 

Put all of the softened ice cream into a bowl and mix until creamy. If your ice cream is still quite hard, just let it soften a bit more.

Take the creamy, softened ice cream and spread it on top of your cookie crust in your spring form pan

My mint chocolate chip ice cream only went 3/4s of the way up the pan, so I put the cake in the freezer to let the first layer harden as I softened some vanilla ice cream. Once softened, I put a few drops of red food colouring in and stirred it really well. I thought this was a nice touch for a spa cake, calm green and soft pink always comes to mind when I think of relaxation and girls.

During this next step, you can get as creative as you like when making your cake. In the past, I have made strawberry ice cream cakes with the top being chocolate ice cream and then garnishing the whole cake with strawberries and cookies. I have also made a chocolate, strawberry and vanilla cake…you can also sprinkle cookie crumbs between layers.

For this cake though, I thought the light pink was a lovely finishing touch.

 

Once the cake pan is topped with the softened ice cream of your choice, cover it and place it in the freezer. For a good set, leave it 24 hours.

About an hour before the party, I brought out the cake and let it sit for about 10 minutes. Then I carefully unlatched the lock on the spring form pan and lifted it up off the cake. I transferred the cake onto a crystal cake dish and brought out the items that I was going to decorate the cake with. For this cake I chose some red and green sprinkles, left over cookies split in half, some crushed candy canes and of course whipping cream.

 

You can whip your own cream but I find buying the kind in a can the easiest for a nice decorative touch.

This is my favourite part as I love to decorate; houses, packages, and in this this case, a cake. It’s like beautifying and putting your own touch on things. I didn’t have more than 5 minutes though, since I was doing last minute cleaning, cooking, spa prep. And that is the true beauty of this cake…it takes no time to make it look sensational.
And here it is, a few cookies around the sides, some along the top and I used the whipping cream and sprinkles/crushed candy canes, to do the rest. I didn’t take a picture of it after it was cut since I was the spa coordinator along with the cook, baker and bottle washer. It was beautiful though, with the chocolate crust, then the light green ice cream and finally the soft pink as the top….it almost looked like icing. Oh and it was yummy too. ( Hint..if you ever do a spa party for your child….ask a friend/sister/neighbour, etc to help out….so you can take pictures)

As I was busy getting things ready in the afternoon I DID snap a picture of our chalk board and all the things we had planned for the evening. When the girls arrived, I had spa music playing, candles lit and I used lots of aromatherapy to make the house smell relaxing.

 

This was the “waiting room”…I had a salt crystal light, candles, and a water feature tinkling at our front door…of course I Googled some great spa music and it was playing on my computer all night…oh and the smell in the house…lovely scents from the store “Saje”

Once everyone had arrived and settled in, we served dinner. I thought the appropriate dinner selection would be one less spicy but our daughter loves butter chicken, vegetable samosa’s etc, and ceasar salad so that was our menu.

After dinner, each girl was asked to find a comfy chair in our living room, where I had placed a white plastic bucket filled with hot water at the foot. In the water, I had poured a mixture of sea salts, epsom salts and some lavender essential oil….and of course a touch of blue food colouring. The girls settled in comfortably, chatting easily, as the spa music filled the room. It didn’t hurt that we had already decorated our house with greenery and white lights everywhere, which really set a peaceful mood.

As they were soaking their feet, I went from girl to girl and placed the honey facial mask that I had made ahead of time.

Hope’s Facial Mask

1 egg,
1/4 cup of honey
1/2 cup of flour
Lavender Essential oil…(I also put in a few drops of vanilla)

After they all had their facial masks on, I placed a “cold” cucumber slices over their eyes. Each girl went “awwww,” as they felt the refreshing cucumber go on their eyes. As they relaxed, I went around from girl to girl and massaged their feet using an exfoliating product I had purchased at the “Body Shop” but I  had read that a homemade product of sugar and honey works great too.

This would have worked a lot better had I had some help, as I was really moving from girl to girl and in and out of the kitchen with fresh hot water to add to the their foot baths. They didn’t seem to notice though since they were all really quiet (amazing for 11 year old chatty girls!) as they had their heads back, just enjoying the treatment.

After about 20 minutes with the mask on their face, I heated up some wet wash clothes, with lavender sprinkled on them, in the microwave. Once heated, I gently placed it over each of their faces, with just their noses exposed. Each of them, audiably sighed, and as they relaxed further into this warmth, I went around the room and took their feet out of the foot bath. I gave each of them one final foot massage rubbing in some lovely rich “Satsumi,” body butter from from the store, The Body Shop. The smell is absolutely lovely.

Once all the girls had their feet massaged. I gave them a new round of warm wash clothes to wipe off their honey masks. I then brought in lovely red towels for them to dry their faces (we really needed new towels and these were on sale at The Bay recently…I thought they looked rather festive and although one thinks of WHITE for spa towels…I thought these were warm and rich looking and lovely with the white lights and candles and all the greenery. (For some of the greenery, D went out just before the party and pruned some of our pine bushes) I put the towels in their laps and brought each of them a small bucket of warm water, in which I had placed a light vanilla scented soap, some epsom salts and dried peppermint leaves from our garden. Oh this was lovely, and the girls seemed to really enjoy soaking not just their fingers but immersed their whole hands into the warm water. After about another 15 minutes, I brought clean warm water and they rinsed off their hands. Then, I gave them all some of the Satsumi body butter for their hands. Finally, I gave them all an emery board and asked that they file their toe nails and finger nails.

It was time to play the Nail game. I pushed everything out of the way and laid down on the floor a warm fleece blanket that I had just heated in the dryer. The girls sat down forming a circle and I  explained the game.

We had a selection of 5 nail colours plus a clear colour set aside. Each girl threw dice to see who would go first…the highest throw started the game. The first girl chose a nail polish bottle of her choice and spun it. The person the bottle pointed to when it stopped spinning was instructed to roll the dice. The number it landed on would then determine how many toe nails she had to paint the selected colour. She would then paint her nails, which ever toe nail she chose, and then she selected the next colour and spun the bottle and the game continued for a long time. Choruses of laughter spilled from the living room. When all their toes were painted, the game was over. The girls had such a great time and in the end, everyone seemed really happy with the results of their pedicure. (Note…if you are doing this make sure to put down a blanket that is not near and dear to you…in case some nail polish gets spilled.) Also, before they started painting their nails, I gave them nail painting instructions 101 so they spread the polish with ease. (One stroke down the middle…then sides…finishing with a Q tip with nail polish remover to take away any overages)

 

After their pedicure, the girls painted their finger nails the colour of their choice.(It helped that I bought Sally Hanson, fast dry nail polish) After that, the girls went out to the hot tub, where I could hear them laughing and giggling. When they came in they were all prunes but they said it was wonderful, luxuriating in the hot water with the cold winter air on their faces. It was perfect as I was able to clean up from the spa part of our evening and set out the cake, popcorn, punch, pop, licorice for the movie/sleepover portion of the party.

The next morning, after D’s delicious pancakes (he really knows how to make a great breakfast!) I had the girls make Lavender Bath Salts to take home. It was really fun watching them turn some basic ingredients into a lovely gift and I was thinking, hmmmm….I should include this in my blog in case you are looking for a homemade gift to give to someone special this holiday season.

Hope’s Bath Salts

A glass container
Epsom Salts
Sea Salts 
Food Colouring
Essential Oil of your choice….we used Lavender 
Ribbon of your choice…we used raffia ribbon for a cottage look

Mix 1 part epsom salts with 1 part sea salts. Add the food colouring of your choice. You have to really mix the colouring in well until you get a nice consistency. The girls used blue and a bit of red for a lovely blue. Finally, add and stir in the essential oil of your choice.

Ideally, you would let it sit and dry overnight but we had to pour with a funnel into the girls glass containers and added a label and the raffia ribbon. You can do different colours and layer it as you desire or have it all the same colour. One Christmas our girls made peppermint bath salts and did one layer of green, then pink, alternating layers right to the top of the jar…fixing a bow and attaching a candy cane beneath it…the sky is the limit regarding your choice of scent and colours..and jars. Canning jars would be really cool with the raffia ribbon!

I wished I had taken pictures of the girl’s thank you bags but you know how busy things get at parties….but here’s what I did in case you are wanting to throw your daughter a spa party. I went to the dollar store and found really pretty glitzy clutch purses. The make up bags that they had were kind of tacky and weren’t big enough for what I wanted to put in them.

Inside these bright pink, glittery bags, (like evening bags) I placed a bar of lavender soap, nail polish remover (in case the parents weren’t thrilled over the girls manicures/pedicures) a few emery boards, some cotton squares(put into t little bag to keep them sterile) and a bottle of nice nail polish (I didn’t get these at the dollar store but bought a good quality bottle of nail polish) Finally, when you are 11, turning 12, you still like candy, so I threw a handful of wrapped candy….holiday variety, since she is my December baby. I wrapped the whole purse with raffia ribbon as it was bulging full. In addition to their bath salts, it was a nice way to say thank you for coming. Grace is really blessed to have such wonderful friends!

Well, that’s one birthday down, two more to go….the next one is a SWEET SIXTEEN for my quickly growing sweet boy, uummm, young man,  Harrison…stay tuned. Although celebrating each of our children’s birthdays is very special, remembering the journey to Grace, reminds me how special this time of year truly is. It’s the season of light. The season of miracles. The season of love.

Before I close I thought an appropriate YouTube video was, (click here if you can’t see below) Joe Cocker’s song, “You ARE so Beautiful.” because although this blog post was all about Grace’s spa beauty party, she reminds me all the time what beauty is all about.

 

     Happy Birthday Grace. Your soul shines!

Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.

Blessings from Hope

When Things Fall Apart

/ Lee Reynolds

My dryer is broken.

My Ruby red LG dryer–broken dryer

You may remember reading last week about my belief in Murphy’s law, coinciding with D’s business trips. Something ALWAYS happens when he goes out of town. Of course, if I truly believe in the law of attraction, which I do, I will start reciting this mantra, “something marvelous always occurs when D is working out of town.”

But last week, I had no such insight.

D has since returned, delved into the dryer’s malfunction (did I mention he is handy?) and has ordered a new circuit board. Of course, just finding a place that would provide, said part was an ordeal. I get SO frustrated when we find a part in our cousin country, (the U.S.) but for WHATEVER reason, things can’t always be shipped to Canada. (Free trade stinks at times) Anyway, don’t get me started, we did finally find the part but of course, it is NOW on order.

Until then, I’ve threatened the children within an inch of their life, to NOT put anything but socks and underwear in the wash. To hang up their towels after use and under no circumstances are they to put their sheets in the laundry basket. Even the little kids know the drill and they carefully strip down, laying the approved items for the wash aside and putting their other clothes back in their drawers/closet.

Even under these strict rules, with 8 people living in our home, there is still wash to do each day and each day I pray for good weather so I can set it out on our deck to dry.

First thing I do every morning is assess the drying weather

Now for some strange reason, when it is MY choice to dry our clothes on the deck it’s okay. I feel really empowered by the whole concept of saving energy and using wind and solar power to dry our clothes but when I have no choice, I feel like a victim to the appliance manufacturers, who can’t seem to construct machines that will last more than 5 years.

Our clothes drying outside…underwear and socks are inside

For the first 15 years of our marriage we had the same washing machine pair and since then we have had to replace them every 5 years like clockwork, which is ridiculous in my books. Yes, sure, we have a larger than average family and for the last 5 years our family is very large but still, this new LG was purchased after Will was born 5 years ago. You would think it could make it until he was in grade 1 before breaking down.

Okay, enough venting about my dryer, except to say, I actually would dry everything outside,(and sneer at the dryer manufactures) if there was a way of drying clothes outside without everything, like towels, feeling scratchy boards. Send me a comment if you have a solution In the spring, I may even ask D to construct a clothesline, although our neighbours may protest over us airing our “clean” laundry to dry. Sigh.

I actually thought I was doing really well with D out of town last week, dealing with the day to day drama until Will came home from school on Thursday with a broken zipper on his new coat. His NEW coat. He had only worn it for a week and the little metal thingy on the bottom of the zipper broke off so the zipper slide wouldn’t stay attached.

The metal piece on the right..broke off

I was livid! BUT again, Murphy’s law prevailed (D was still away at this point) and wouldn’t you know I had just thrown out the store receipt, along with the price tags, etc in the garbage on Tuesday. I wasn’t exactly sure it went in the Tuesday garbage, but just to be sure, I went through the garbage we had accumulated since Tuesday, reviewing each item carefully. It was Friday morning at this point and surprisingly we had a lot of garbage. Yuck!

Have you ever done a garbage inspection? It was amazing what I found. PERFECTLY GOOD STUFF! A bag full of nuts, dried fruit and yogurt covered bits, (expensive nuts, I might add), an apple, a perfectly good pencil, an unopened juice box with straw still attached, cat food cans that still had food in them, (the children feed the cats) and then what really surprised me were things that could be recycled, for instance toilet paper rolls, and quite a bit of potential compost material…like apple cores, banana peels, etc. Very insightful.

Suffice it to say, garbage inspections will continue, (as gross and stinky as they are) regularly since the goal of being less wasteful is high on my priority list. And perhaps I will have to get the children to do some research on garbage waste in our country and we can enjoy a field trip to the dump, which really should have a new name, something like “precious land.” Okay, again I got sidetracked…where was I?

Oh YES, since I must have thrown out the store receipt (which yes, when I think of it, should have been recycled too…in which case we would still have them in our recycling bin) I had to come up with a solution to Will’s broken zipper. What to do? Well, after the garbage inspection, I pulled out our yellow pages and called every single tailor and seamstress listed. Three. There are probably more but I don’t have any connections in the sewing industry which I think is a lost art by the way. And again, Murphy’s law, every one of them said they could do it but not for 3 weeks. That was the magic time frame for all of them. I told them my son would freeze by then but thanked them for their time.

Then I decided to google how to repair a zipper but sadly this didn’t appear to be easily manuvered, so I decided as ridiculous as it is to repair a brand new coat, I had to walk my talk and not only be frugal but sustainable. I would have to do it myself. On Sunday, I warned all the kids that the big repair job was being conducted and they were to keep themselves busy so I could focus on ripping out the broken zipper and reattach the new one we had purchased at Fabricland on Saturday.

Well, at first I couldn’t see how to even begin and I was so worried I was going to put a hole in the nylon material but after about 1/2 hour I finally made a tiny opening and things progressed from there. Once the zipper was removed, I carefully pinned the new one to the coat, being conscious to place the zipper bottom, at the bottom of the jacket. Believe me, I have done some funny things over the years when I sew. Harrison, our 15 year old, must have inherited my lack of sewing perception, as his Home Ec teacher told him not to become a bridge builder when he grows up, as he had sewed the legs shut to the boxer shorts he was making last year.

Sewing the zipper was really easy and quick or so I thought. When I went to zip up the jacket, the zipper got stuck on the material since I had sewed the zipper too close to the edges of the jacket. So, with teeth clenched and screams to the children, “do not BUG me,” I ripped out the zipper again and re-sewed it. This time, being careful to ensure the material had some clearance to allow the zipper to flow along the teeth without any blockages. Voila! Not the prettiest job but it got the job done and Will would not freeze this winter.

Will checking out the new zipper

 

Also, I learned a few valuable lessons. In the future, when we purchase anything that costs over say $50.00 dollars (and this coat was much higher than that) I will retain the receipts and tags in an envelope for safe keeping. We do this with appliances…however isn’t it interesting that the unit always breaks down exactly one day after any warranty expires?

Well my dryer still isn’t fixed but D assures me that the part will be here soon, fingers crossed that this is the magic part. Will went to school on Monday with a working zipper and all was going okay until I woke up yesterday to a freezing house. D had already left for work very early, at 6:45 to take Harrison to jazz band and Clark to the University bus. He didn’t notice how chilly the house was but one hour later when the kids were going out the door the house still wasn’t heating up.

D came home at lunch, per my frozen request and cycled the power (I think that was the correct term he used) and geesh, I could have done that. It seemed to get our furnace working but again this morning, it didn’t kick in. So now we have another ISSUE to deal with.

Our gas fireplace kept us warm

Add some concerns we have over our daughter in the U.K. and her teaching profession and our out of town University son, finding a comfort zone to marinade in while away from home and things in my life, to a degree seem to be falling apart. Do you ever wonder why things seem to go wrong. And in threes too? There is that old wives tale anyway.

I don’t think they really go wrong in threes, they go wrong in a series of threes, a life time of threes. Life is just full of things falling apart. And that is the essence of life. Unless, UNLESS, you shift your perspective AND learn the fine art of surrender.

I often say that “letting go” is my major life lesson. It seems to be in the theme of EVERYTHING I experience in life. Something falls apart, I notice it, I react….sometimes I OVER REACT, and thankfully as I’m growing wiser, I then shift and let go and then I’m back into the well being stage. UNTIL the next thing. Which at times can be moments later. It feels like a delicate dance I do on this earth school.

Then last night, as I was at my meditation meeting, things became clearer. Things fall apart in order to teach me the lessons I need to learn. To enforce the understanding that we are impermanent and things are ALWAYS changing. Then I laughed and wondered if once I became proficient at this life dance, if in the future I wouldn’t even be aware when things go awry because I will smoothly waltz past any obstacles. My awareness will be that everything is perfect and things are not broken at all.

In this light, and maybe as a result of my attraction expectation, instead of things falling apart, things will be coming together. Like a beautiful dance, where at first you are just learning the steps and finally after a lot of practice, it artfully flows together with the music.

For instance on Sunday when I was sewing Will’s zipper in place. Grace took the time to host a tea party for the three little ones. She made some “Mother’s Helper Tea” that my sister B had given me and filled a plate full of cookies we picked up from her school’s Christmas Fair Market. She made the afternoon fun for the little ones as I tried to repair the jacket. She reminded me that things do come together with the smallest effort. My children have been the best teachers in my life. They are CONSTANTLY changing and growing and with such ease and grace. They live in the moment and enjoy each experience.

Grace brought up her Beatrix Potter tea set and her fairies to join the party
Invite some friends to the party
Kate, Grace, Will and Victoria enjoy their Mother’s Helper Tea and Cookies
Would you care for another biscuit, Kathryn? Yes, thank you.

Check out this YouTube video, it’s one of my fav artists from when I was young, Cat Stevens singing, Oh Very Young....reminds me of how quickly life unfolds and reminds me also, not to stress when things fall apart…we are impermanent and life is short. Our children are truly are best teachers. Even though they are changing and growing every day, they live happily in the moment.

 The lyrics to Oh Very Young

Oh very young
What will you leave us this time
You’re only dancing on this earth for a short while
And though your dreams may toss and turn you now
They will vanish away like your daddy’s best jeans
Denim Blue fading up to the sky
And though you want him to last forever
You know he never will
(You know he never will)
And the patches make the goodbye harder still

Oh very young
What will you leave us this time
There’ll never be a better chance to change your mind
And if you want this world to see a better day
Will you carry the words of love with you
Will you ride the great white bird into heaven
And though you want to last forever
You know you never will
(You know you never will)
And the goodbye makes the journey harder still

Oh very young
What will you leave us this time
You’re only dancing on this earth for a short while
Oh very young
What will you leave us this time

Hmmmm….good lessons to learn when things fall apart.

What do you do when things fall apart? Watch your reaction the next time and notice how you dance to the music.

Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.

Blessings from Hope

Earthlings Get Grounded

/ Lee Reynolds

When you’re finally up at the moon looking back on earth, all those differences and nationalistic traits are pretty well going to blend, and you’re going to get a concept that maybe this really is one world and why the hell can’t we learn to live together like decent people.

 

— Frank Borman, Apollo 8, Newsweek magazine, 23 December 1968.

It’s been an action packed week and I’m sorry I haven’t been able to write any posts but as you may have read, it started with D and I attending an Urban Farm Symposium last Saturday and continued with a long awaited visit from my sister B and my brother in law J. Life has been rich with new ideas and insights and I’m thankful, since I wouldn’t have much to write about without the abundance of both in my life.

Before I move into the meat of this blog, I want to give you a bit of the back story so you can appreciate the whole picture and some history. My sister B lives in Victoria on Vancouver Island. Not too far from my homestead, only a days drive and ferry ride away but far enough so we only see each other a few times a year. And that is when she generously comes to visit. I remember our visit in the summer of 2013. She was chiding me for walking everywhere barefoot. I told her that putting shoes on was too much of a hassle since I was often running after the little ones. We were down to the garden, or play area,  or swimming in the pool, several times a day and it’s not like we have a yard with obstacles like chicken droppings or even dog waste. But still, she cautioned me on being careful walking in the dirt as there are pathogens that could enter through broken skin etc and cause infection.

Did I mention she is my BIG sister. She was just shy of 13 when I was born, so she has always been a bit protective and always nurturing towards me. This past summer, she and her daughter, T and two granddaughters, H and M, came for a visit. We had a lovely visit with lots of laughter and some moments of deep soul talk. The kind only sisters can share (and nieces). My sister always brings gifts that are useful and some that I wouldn’t go out and buy myself. For instance, on one of her shopping trips, she came home with a lucky bamboo plant in an elephant planter. Since I study the art of Feng Shui, I knew she was giving us a gift full of many blessings. She is always bestowing the best of life upon me and my family.

 

This is my lucky elephant bamboo, full of blessings that B gave this past summer

I’m also thankful, that she is highly organized and is often clearing clutter, another wonderful Feng Shui practice. There have been many occasions where I have benefited after one of her space clearing sessions. This past summer was another such time when she left a box of “things” for me to peruse after she left. Some of my most treasured pieces of clothing have come second hand from her, so with tears still in my eyes wondering when I would see her again,  I unearthed the contents piece by piece,  trying on this and that. When I came to the bottom of the box there were a familiar pair of shoes I had often admired her wearing. They are a pair of lovely brown, Josef Siebels.  They are what my  mother in law D would have called, “sensible walking shoes,” when she herself lived in Victoria watching women walking their dogs in such footwear.

WOW~ I was thankful to have a new pair of shoes. On the first day this fall, when it was particularly cold, I wore them when taking the little girls to preschool. I was chatting with J, our children’s preschool teacher. We go WAY back, since she taught our oldest son, Clark, 18 years earlier and every little one since then. She knows our family really well and we have been fortunate to have her in our lives.

I don’t really know how our conversation took off but I think it had something to do with the weather finally growing colder and I was having to ditch my sandals. I told her I had spent most of my summer barefoot and that my older sister must have felt sorry for me as she gave me these wonderful shoes to wear, as I motioned towards my new, high end shoes. J, said she knew someone who also enjoyed going barefoot and commented about it being very good for you.

My sister B and brother in law J arrived at our home last Monday. While the weekend had been gloriously warm, the weather had shifted on Monday which was decidedly colder. We hadn’t started the furnace yet this year, so after giving my sister a big hug and chatting briefly, I noticed she was uncharacteristically barefoot. I asked her if I could get her a pair of socks or something. She looked down at her very tanned feet, (did I mention they had been on holidays down the Oregon Coast etc for the past month?) and said, “no thanks, I’m doing the barefoot thing.”

We talked about their trip etc and then it finally came around to her feet once again and I asked what was up with the bare feet? It was then she told me about a book she and B had read while on their holidays. It was called, “Earthing.” They also had the DVD, which they had brought along for us to watch. She showed me pictures of her and J walking barefoot with my other sister, J and her husband B. (hey, just now I noticed that the couples share the same first letters…but in reverse)  They had been visiting with them for 2 days and they were “grounding” themselves at their acreage all weekend.

Grounding or Earthing is defined as placing one’s bare feet on the ground whether it be dirt, grass, sand or concrete (especially when humid or wet). When you ground to the electron-enriched earth, an improved balance of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system occurs.

The Earth is a natural source of electrons and subtle electrical fields, which are essential for proper functioning of immune systems, circulation, synchronization of biorhythms and other physiological processes and may actually be the most effective, essential, least expensive, and easiest to attain antioxidant.
 
Modern science has thoroughly documented the connection between inflammation and all of the chronic diseases, including the diseases of aging and the aging process itself. It is important to understand that inflammation is a condition that can be reduced or prevented by grounding your body to the Earth, the way virtually all of your ancestors have done for hundreds if not thousands of generations

I had to laugh at first. Here was my big sister first telling me to put my shoes on, actually giving me a pair of shoes and now she was telling me to take them off. In addition stressing that going barefoot was the way to go. I could have told her that.

Although I didn’t know there were any significant health benefits, I knew how I felt after being at the ocean, walking on the beach for a week or burying my feet in the sand while the children made crab castles. Also, walking in my garden barefoot or sitting and meditating on the earth felt restorative. When we listen to our body and how it’s reacting, we are never wrong.

Well, throughout the week that B was visiting, when we had a moment we would go out into the yard barefoot. The little people were thrilled because they knew intrinsically what felt good and were baffled at why I had been harping at them to put their shoes on since the weather turned cold. As long as they were bundled up with a sweater etc, they felt great barefoot and surprisingly enough, the earth still held a lot of heat from our long hot summer.

Our little girls, Victoria and Kate grounding with their Auntie B.

And so, my dear blog friends, from my big sister, now to you I say, “to shoe or not to shoe?” that is the question. Maybe, if more of us went barefoot on the earth, communed with nature, our whole world would be healthier and more balanced. At the very least we would be connected to our roots and care for Mother Earth as she cares for us.

AND

That brings me to another insight I had during the week. As you probably know, unless you are living off the grid without any contact with the outer world, during the past week there were several acts of terrorism in my country, one which occurred on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. A lone gunman, Michael Abdul Ehaf-Bibeau, who was a recent convert to Islam, killed an unarmed soldier, 24 year old Cpl. Nathan Cerillo, who was standing guard at our National War Memorial. He then went on to enter the Parliament building and after a round of gun fire was shot and killed himself. My heart just weeps and I know this sounds crazy, but I am so sad for everyone involved…even the shooter.

There have been so many horrific events of terrorism around the world but I think for many reasons this latest was particularly disturbing since Canadians are known to be peace keepers and this act occurred in the heart of our political system…close to where our Prime Minister and MP’s were debating choices we as Canadians uphold. Freedom, justice, equality, etc.

With the thoughts of growing food swirling in my head from last weekend’s Urban Farm Symposium and the idea of  grounding/earthing and its benefits, along with this news story settling in my heart, I have to wonder if most of the world has its head in the clouds. For many on earth being in a dream state is how they maneuver through life. Asleep to the fact that we are all connected and unaware that if we don’t wake up now, our precious Mother Earth will be destroyed and humanity along with it. Cracks are forming all over the earth.

For many humans the light is being turned on and through their environmental concerns they are starting to see the bigger picture. As if they are out in space and looking with awe at the beauty and peace within our grasp. Understanding that we can’t heal the earth and all the damage we have done to it, without addressing people’s suffering at the same time.

Something I read this week in a book by Pema Chodron called, “Taking the Leap,” resonated with me and I wanted to share it here. She wrote,

“Working on ourselves and becoming more conscious about our own minds and emotions may be the only way for us to find a solutions that address the welfare of all beings and the survival of the earth itself.”

She further shares this,

“There was a story that was widely circulated a few days after the attack of September 11, 2001, that illustrates our dilemma. A Native American grandfather was speaking to his grandson about violence and cruelty and how it comes about. He said, it was as if two wolves were fighting in his heart. One wolf was vengeful and angry, and the other wolf was understanding and kind. The grandson asked his grandfather which wolf would win the fight in his heart. And the grandfather answered, “the one that wins, will be the one I choose to feed.”


She continues,

“So this is our challenge, the challenge for our spiritual practice and the challenge for the world~how can we train right now, not later, to feed the right wolf?”
                                                                                        ~Pema Chodron, from “Taking the Leap”~

I want to thank Pema Chodron for that. I finished reading my Sacred Sister’s book club selection earlier in the month. It was called, “The Places That Scare Us” by Pema Chodron. I enjoyed it so much that I started reading more of her writing and it has settled in my heart. She is right on.

I know the wolf I want to feed.

How about you?

Every day we make choices to wake up. Sending understanding and kindness into the world seems the only way to heal.

Another way to stay awake though is being grounded and so, that ties in to the benefits of EARTHING….it just feels like a constantly flowing circle, we keep coming back to ourselves and the answer seems so simple. Take care of the earth, and the earth will take care of us.

If you want to learn more about Earthing, I thought I would give you a link to the YouTube full movie. It’s called, “Grounded.” (click the highlighted word) and it is a light, easy to watch documentary of one man’s story and how Earthing changed his life and the little town of Haines, Alaska.

Well that was my week in a nutshell. As I said a sad goodbye to my sister, I wanted to share a picture she took of D and me with Will. I’m wearing another of her gifts…..what she called, “grandma’s apron” and you know what? There could be a revival of these lovely things as it’s really useful. A blog for another day. Hey, and notice my fantastic shoes in the picture below. Thanks B! I’m blessed to have cool sisters!  Also, so very grateful that I have people actually reading my blog so thank you to you…my dear blog readers!

Peace out!

D, and myself, with our sweet William…saying goodbye to my sister B and brother in law J

Until we meet again, may you be well, peaceful and happy.

Blessings from Hope

Food for Thought….A Day at our Urban Farm Symposium

/ Lee Reynolds
This is a view of the lake outside of the cafeteria

A week ago today, D and I were listening attentively to all the speakers (there were 8 in total) at our local Urban Farm Symposium. The location could not have been better, as we were in the cafeteria at our local College, which is adjacent to Patchwork Farm. Patchwork Farm, is a community collective farm, where people of all ages and abilities join in meaningful activities that fosters personal growth, strengthens the local food system and enhances appreciation for land, food, health and community. The actual location for the College and the Farm is on the hillside above Kalamalka Lake, a tiny bit west of where our homestead is situated.

It was Patchwork Farm, along with all their supporters, that put on this Symposium. I thought it would have been better attended, however there were under 50 in attendance, which was disheartening when you think water and food are the basics of life and supporting both were discussed in detail throughout the day.

On the plus side, having a small gathering meant we had great seats and the group felt intimate enough where we were comfortable asking questions throughout the day.

Our first speaker, and host for the day, Keli Westgate is a Certified Permaculture Designer, a Director of the Sustainable Environment Network Systems, SENS, as well as a multi-media producer and marketing freelancer. She shared the many community and environment projects that the SENS group has on the go, including the Vernon in Transition Movement, Beesafe, a monthly speaker series, and my personal favourite topic, the vision for a Vernon Earthship Healing and Education Centre.

An earthship, is a unique type of passive solar house that is made of both natural and recycled materials, designed and marketed by Earthship Biotecture of Taos, New Mexico. The term is a registered trademark of Michael Reynolds.

Other than the fact that the original creator of this design shares my husband’s last name, D and I are intrigued by the idea of using recycled items, like tires and glass bottles, to create a totally sustainable housing plan. During our next short break we were bubbling with possibilities and our creative juices were flowing as we discussed  how we could create such a place for our family. When I came home from the symposium and did some research, I see a family in Alberta is doing just that, and here is a link to the CBC report on this Prairie Earthship home.  

Some earthship images,

Our next lecture was given by Jane Emlyn, who has a background in Soil Biology, is a co-founder in BeeSafe, is a master gardener and has a lifetime experience in self sufficient living. She brought her knowledge of natural farming practices and small lot design to the table. I loved how she started talking about her observations on how things grow when she was just a child. She shared her memories of living close to a richly forested area, where she was able to walk in nature, experience the changing seasons and notice how the trees and plants were growing without any help from man.

She also talked about her childhood being a time when everyone had a kitchen garden in their backyard and her neighbours, who came from diverse cultures with various gardening practices, all contributed to her learning and knowledge. She watched how in the fall, the hardest working gardeners cleaned their beds of all plant debris and placed it in a compost bin to be dug out again in the spring and spread around the garden. While these gardeners had beautiful productive gardens, she thought there had to be a more natural and efficient way that required less effort.\

Later in her life, she studied soil biology and learned how the earth is teeming with billions of organisms working in a symbiotic relationship to create the perfect environment for the continuing lifecycle of all things. The no dig philosophy was one she adopted and with great success. Her lecture was called, “Winterize Your Soil.”  The general premise of her talk was to encourage us to think about leaving gardening debris exactly where it grew. Whatever was left after you harvested your vegetables, etc, remained in place in the garden. Break it down into smaller, manageable pieces if you wish for quicker decomposition, but leave it in place.  She was also big on mulches, layering the garden with leaves, straw bales, whatever you have available and in the spring, she stressed that nothing be removed. You just plant right on top. She shared a few books that she highly recommended.

They were:

“Green Thumb” by Ruth Stout 

“The One Straw Revolution” by Masanobu Fukuoka

“The Zero Mile Diet” by Carolyn Herriot

The easy, relaxed way, Jane spoke about her gardening practices made me think about how hard I sometimes work in my garden, hauling debris to my compost and then working it back in every spring. I was going to really think about how, “I can let nature do most of the work to create the rich fertile soil I desire. The basis for growing all things.” (Stay tuned for my upcoming blog post on “Grounding, or another word, Earthing” which ties into this belief)

After a tea break, we were introduced to Cuyler Page who shared his expansive knowledge on growing wheat, particularly Red Fife Wheat. He had interesting history to share and stories to tell about growing Red Fife. All Red Fife grown for use today in artisan bakeries around our area can trace its ancestry to a half pound he and Sharon Rempel planted at the Grist Mill at Keremeos in 1989. He told stories about growing wheat and also gave us a demonstration on threshing and winnowing the wheat that had been harvested earlier from Patchwork Farm. It was all very interesting but to grow enough wheat to make one loaf of bread in my opinion, was too much for the urban farmer. I appreciated all the knowledge however and as I was eating my lunch of bun with veggies and hummus, I was appreciating what went in to make the bun. A lot of work!

Before Lunch was served, Bill Hickey, uncovered the secrets of growing cold hardy varieties of figs in the Okanagan Valley. Bill is a lifetime gardener with an adventurous streak. On hearing four years ago that a few people in Vernon had fig trees in the ground he decided to find the best suited fig cultivars for our climate. Over 20 varieties are candidates. Eight varieties are ripening in his yard currently. He went on to show us how to grow and prune figs for quick production but after the talk, although I admired his tenacity, I thought, that is something I don’t have time to entertain. I just want to feed my family and spend my time more efficiently. However, for those people, who want a hobby, growing figs would be lovely…and eating them even better.

Our lunch was rich with discussion and food. As D and I enjoyed a deliciously thick pumpkin soup and our choice of sandwiches or buns loaded with yummy veggies inside, we talked about the direction we saw our own homestead traveling and the dreams we had on the horizon. Before the afternoon lectures began, we took a walk outside to enjoy the day. I was thinking perhaps the real gardeners had stayed home to work in their yards on this Saturday, as although the day had begun cold and cloudy, by lunch the day had warmed and the sun was shining brightly. It was a perfect day to muck around in the yard. Here is a picture of the raised gardens at Patchwork farm and below is a picture of the view from the farm.

 

 
More pictures at Patchwork Farm…Kale still going crazy above

Before we went back inside, I snapped a picture of D…I was so happy he decided to join me and share in my passion. He has been so busy at his office and I think all these lectures opened his eyes to the endless opportunities available for our homestead.

All refreshed, we were ready to discuss some pretty serious issues on, “Food, Farming and Community.” Wendy Holm, is an award -winning resource Economist, Agrologist and Journalist. She has covered stories at the forefront of Canadian policy since the early 1990’s picking up eight national journalism awards since 2003. Wendy holds an honours B.Sc. in Business Administration, an M.Sc. in Agricultural Economics and a Masters of Management, Cooperatives and Credit Unions. She talked about world food and farming practices and how important the small family farm is to the world. Also, in great detail, she discussed the necessity of protecting our agriculture lands from corporations who want to profit without any care or consequence for the environment.

Check out the following YouTube video called, A Vision Of Agriculture with Wendy Holm

As Wendy left to leave for the airport, I thanked her for coming and giving me, “Food for Thought!” It’s people like this who help to change the way we think about growing food in the world. I felt really empowered and while I don’t have any of her credentials, she left me feeling that I could make a difference in the world.

As my head was still spinning from such a meaty lecture, our next speaker, Heather Clay brought 30 years of experience working in the beekeeping industry and recently co-edited a book on Honey Bee Diseases and Pests. Her topic, “The Urban Beescape” was exactly what I had been looking for as I tried to think about how we could become small scale beekeepers. I was thinking how wonderful it would be for our children to watch how the bees pollinate our crops and how they all work together to make an elixir for life. Honey! Check out the site, www.capabees.org

Our second last speaker was Curtis Stone, who owns “Green City Acres” in Kelowna, B.C. He talked efficiently for one hour discussing how to practically turn 2000 square feet of lawn into a productive garden which can earn a substantial amount of money…..my notes say, $18,000 dollars however this is all dependent on your crop and who is purchasing your produce. He discussed the technical process of converting a lawn into a mini-farm and the economics of production. Of course this was interesting to see how quickly he moved into production and also introduced the idea that just because you live in an urban setting, doesn’t mean you can’t become a farmer.  A profitable farmer turning lawn into food….and money. Here’s a Youtube video, “Meet an urban farmer….Curtis from Green City Acres.”  Gets one thinking for sure!

And finally at the end of a wonderful day of stimulating ideas and thoughts came a lovely speaker, Gordon Hiebert, of Element Eco-design, who is a permaculture practitioner in the North Okanagan. He uses his knowledge of ecological systems to create sustainable building, regenerative agriculture, water harvesting and waste systems to create unique integrated designs. His easy going, relaxed approach made me feel peaceful, believing I was moving in the right direction and it was comforting to know there was this wealth of knowledge in my backyard. His topic also brought me back to the speaker of the day that really inspired both D and I; the Earthship home, which feels like the perfect direction for us to move towards. Perhaps, D and I won’t live in such a place in our lifetime but perhaps our grandchildren will be so fortunate. We told our son Clark about it when we came home and you never know when you plants seeds if they will grow, as Clark is in his 4th year studying Evironmental Sciences and he hopes to become an architect in the future.

We ended our day feeling really blessed to be on this earth with other people so passionate about growing food, conserving water and caring for our planet. For healing our earth and healing our souls is going to require a conscious connection in our communities. It was just what I needed as the season of Autumn throws a blanket of leaves on the ground. It lays a blanket of possibilities at my feet. Endless and exciting.

Now I’m off to winterize my garden…….I’m just cutting up my corn stalks, my tomato plants, raking up my leaves and laying them on the debris. Letting it be still. Then I’m going to sit and drink a hot cup of tea and give thanks.

To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves. ~Mahatma Gandhi

 

Will picking the perfect pumpkin at the patch this week.

Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.

Blessings from Hope

 

Ambrosia Salad~Grateful Hearts

/ Lee Reynolds

Warm sunshine, blue skies and the scent of apples fills the air as we get ready to celebrate Canada’s Thanksgiving weekend. It’s been a busy week but truly glorious. Last Saturday, was the twin’s bike a thon fundraiser for their preschool. I was at a loss how to decorate their bike, yes, singular, since our other tricycle fell apart literally a few weeks before the big event and was unrepairable. We tried to find another bike for them second hand but was unable to find anything that fit or was in decent shape so they shared our old radio flyer. Hey it worked great and reinforced our family’s mission statement, to use what we have and not buy more stuff. And was good advertisement for my blog.

Victoria was a shining example of green power at it’s best

On Tuesday, Will’s  kindergarten class had a field trip to the fire station near his school. That night, David purposely burnt toast so our smoke alarm would go off, while I read the little ones stories. As we escorted our excited bare footed children, wearing nothing but their jammies, out into the clear, cold night,  I was hoping our neighbours weren’t calling 911, as the sound of the shrill alarm rang through our cul-de-sac. Then if they heard shrieks they may REALLY think there was an emergency, well, maybe not, since that is a common sound coming from our home. It was lovely being out in the evening though as we marvelled at the full harvest moon.

Then on Wednesday, I accompanied the little girls and their preschool friends to the Pumpkin patch. I can’t tell you how many times I have taken THAT tour (with each of our older children, often twice, once in preschool and then in kindergarten) but it was really fun to see it through their eyes. As I bought a large box of apples and a big bag of pears after our morning at the farm, I was thinking how thankful I was to be able to experience this once again.

The tractor ride trip to the patch was a highlight, bumpy bump, giggle, giggle.
While very commercial, I am thankful for farmers who have a vision to create a place for children to see pumpkins growing, some were still attached to their vines and some were still flowering.
Victoria sits on her pumpkin, I was thankful for the big bag I brought
Kate and her new pumpkin “pie”friend

Of course, Harrison and Grace also kept us busy driving them to their jazz band, drum, piano and voice lessons, the later two being for Grace. And the week was also speckled with volleyball practices and games which thrills me to no end, since I played volleyball as a teen and so far none of the older children have taken to the game despite me purchasing a really expensive volleyball and net several years ago. The boys ended up using the end poles for weapons of battle and the ball is probably under one of our huge cedar hedges as we speak.

Thursday, Oct 9th, was D’s birthday so it was a quick dinner of fish and chips, coleslaw and cheesecake from Costco’s, which was delicious by the way. Have I mentioned I LOVE Costco? After dinner, cake and gifts, we went to watch another volleyball game. It wasn’t a total failure. Thankfully, our school team won ONE of the games. They are a school known for their honour and academic excellence, but not their athleticism, we are lucky to be mid way in the pack after a season. I love sports as it teaches us how to play in life and hopefully, with a detachment of the outcome. Still, you can hear me cheering with the best of them. I inherited that from my Dad, M, who was a brilliant hockey coach, assistance soccer coach and loved to cheer encouragement at my older sister’s basketball games.

Did I mention we also had a guest on Thursday? Will was so excited to introduce Fluffy, the bear, to me when he arrived home from school. Fluffy is the kindergarten mascot and each evening he is sent home with a lucky child to have a sleepover. The child is to draw a picture of what they do with Fluffy and perhaps write some words if they are able. After school we took Fluffy to the library and of course he was a birthday guest and then came to the volleyball game as well.  As Will clung to him at bedtime, I let go of the idea that Fluffy could also see the inside of my washing machine while he visited us.

Will, thankful for having his time with Fluffy at the library where we picked a book called, “Bears Day Out.”

After such a busy week, while the girls were at preschool on Friday morning, I picked up the Thanksgiving weekend groceries and then came home to throw a load into the washing machine and make beds. The day seemed to fly by though but was highlighted with a visit from my sister J and brother in law, B. They are doing some major projects around their homestead and it’s always exciting to hear about the latest. Building a pizza oven with their kids was a big addition and hopefully soon it will be cured enough to start baking some pizza and enough bread to feed their rural neighbours.

So here it is, Saturday morning. We took the turkey out of the freezer first thing, D made pancakes shaped, he said, like GHOSTS, and while I write now, he is getting our swimming hole winterized. We haven’t had any frost here yet but it’s around the corner. This morning we woke up to see leaves scattered everywhere as the fall winds blew overnight. I have to get out and cut the rest of my herbs and bring in the last of the tomatoes. YES, they are still growing but changing colour very slowly now as the hot days of summer are far behind us.I also want to cut a few stalks of corn to decorate our front entrance for Halloween.

Before the weekend grabs a hold of me and takes me on a whirlwind of gardening, cleaning, and cooking, I thought I would pause to wish all my Canadian blog viewer’s a very Happy Thanksgiving weekend. For those of you, (waving to my daughter in the U.K.) and to my other readers around the world, (Waving Hi to those in France and Trinidad…wow) each day is perfect for giving thanks. Greet the morning as you rise with, “thank you.” As challenging, stressful and full of suffering life is at times, knowing our heart still beats, we have another moment to make a difference and time to enjoy the abundance here for each of us, well that is something to embrace in our grateful hearts.

Something my mom, E was always thankful for was having a LARGE helping of Ambrosia salad at Thanksgiving, so I thought I would share the recipe with you in case you haven’t been initiated into this tradition. It’s a favourite for young and old and is extremely easy to make. I like how it lightens the palate and brightens the Thanksgiving plate too. So without much ado, here’s my family’s Ambrosia recipe. Dedicated to my mom E, my daughter Alyssa and my son Mitchell (in the U.K. and at University in Victoria). You are all in my heart and I’m thankful for the many Thanksgiving weekends we had together.

Hope’s Ambrosia Recipe

Ingredients

1- large bag of coloured mini marshmallow
1- 500 ml tub of sour cream
1- can (14 oz) of pineapple tidbits (drained…save the liquid and make a smoothie)
1- can (14 oz) of fruit cocktail (drained)
1/2 cup of coconut flakes, walnuts, dried cherries….whatever you have in your pantry

(optional)…you can always use a can of mandarin orange slices instead of the pineapple)

 

 Instructions 

Mix all ingredients together really well in a large bowl. Pour them into a casserole dish (with a lid) and top with the nuts, coconut and cherries. Put the lid on and place in fridge overnight. 

That’s it! Easy peasy…and if you are a family with little children and going to someone else’s house for Thanksgiving….perhaps this can be your contribution. It’s easy, it’s something your kids will surely eat AND I’m sure your host(ess) will appreciate it as well.

“Many will be the blessings and short will be the time, so let’s rejoice, let’s be thankful, for the abundance in our lives. ” 

                                                                         ~Lee Reynolds~

Before I leave you, if you have the time, check out this You Tube video clip on being thankful.
(If you have problems connecting with the video, see the highlighted words above..on being thankful)

Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.

Blessings from Hope

P.S. I’m thankful for my readers….we hit over 3000 views a few days ago….WOW for being up and blogging such a short time I just want to say, “thanks for sharing your life with me. ”

 

Saving Seeds for Tomorrow

/ Lee Reynolds

Lately, most of my blog posts have been about things that inspire me and I could write from this place forever, BUT I don’t want to give you the wrong impression about my homestead. Behind every inspiring moment there is a ton of work going on. I don’t know about you but I’m a list maker. I make lists every morning of the things I want to accomplish inside the house, with our children, out in the community and  in our garden. Each night, I fall into bed exhausted after a day of trying to finish everything.

As a gardener, nature shows us how to live our life. After the fertile seasons of Spring and Summer, thankfully Fall comes as our season to reap our harvest. A season to be grateful. Then Winter arrives blanketing us with time to rest and reflect.

When I planted our garden last May, I did so half-heartedly (is that a word?) It describes a person who doesn’t put 100% of their effort into a project and that was certainly me last spring. I wanted to grow food, flowers, and herbs, but my heart was out in the country. Out at the Christmas tree farm I wanted to buy.

Last May, D and I were working like crazy people trying to get our house de-cluttered, repairs performed, and the everything cleaned really well so we could list the house. When it came to the garden, I took one weekend, cleaned up the beds, amended the soil and planted my seeds and plants. I didn’t put everything I wanted in, nor did I take the time to space things properly. Case in point, I planted the corn far too close and never got back to thinning it so I basically had nothing of any consequence to harvest. (Big disappointment for my daughter Alyssa who could eat corn every day)

Despite my lack of planning, most of our garden flourished. As you know from one of my blog posts, I even had unexpected cantaloupe growing, though I hadn’t knowingly planted any seeds. Surprises from the garden are lovely.

Another distraction from my garden was my focus on our oldest daughter, Alyssa, who graduated from University last Spring and then was consumed with upcoming plans to go overseas to begin her teaching career in the U.K. As if that weren’t enough, our third oldest child, Mitchell, graduated from high school and we were caught up in all that event entails. Oh, and I almost forgot, I was extremely fortunate to have an 8 week full time job at a local garden centre. I LOVED it but my own garden suffered.

During last Spring and Summer, I may not have consciously realized it at the time but I was preparing the ground and planting the seeds so our older children could take off and bloom. As fall arrives, I’m happy to see some of that harvest as well, since they  have been sharing stories of  their respective adventures, experiences and inevitable growth.
 Seeds are magical.                   

This last week, I have been busy harvesting the last of our vegetables, clipping and hanging my herbs to dry, and saving all sorts of seeds. Since this is a crucial job in becoming sustainable, I thought I would share a few tips on how to save tomato seeds which is a bit messy but very rewarding. It always amazes me that from one plant we can obtain ALL the seeds we need to grow enough plants to feed our family next year.

With frost on our doorstep, this is probably the last of my tomato harvest

Saving tomato seeds is a snap. Choose the tomatoes that you think are the nicest specimens.

Find jars and label them with the tomato seed variety you plan to put inside. Today, I chose my larger tomatoes, my Romas, perfect for sauces and my cherry tomatoes, which the little girls like to pop into their mouths. I have also saved seeds from my Ox Heart and Mortgage Lifters (heritage) from another harvest. This is an on going process as I pick our produce and stay on top of plants going to seed.

Next, cut the tomato or if it’s really ripe, you can squeeze it and let all the seeds drip into your jar.

 

Once you have the seeds inside the jar, add a 1/2- 1 cup of water to the contents and put a lid on the jar, or a piece of wax paper  or cotton with an elastic band around the rim. Note, as the tomato seeds ferment, it will really smell.
Then let it sit for a few days until you see some moldy residue forming on the top. You can usually tell from the smell when it’s time to remove the seeds. It will be really smelly.
 
Fill the jar with clean water and let all the moldy residue etc run off. The fertile seeds will drift down to the bottom of the jar. When you have removed the debris, grab a strainer and collect the seeds that moved to the bottom of the jar.
 
 Then tap all the seeds onto a plate. (I use paper plates…see above)
     or you can use a coffee filter.
Set the paper plate/coffee filter in a place that can sit undisturbed until the seeds are totally dry. Once dry, put the seeds into little envelopes with the tomato variety written on the outside.
Some people put the seeds in the freezer but I find keeping the seeds in a cool, dark place works great. I put them in a box and keep them in my laundry room.

I was reading an article in our paper today where our local library is starting a seed lending library. It’s very simple, you check out seeds, record what you have taken and then replace the seeds after harvest the following year. I LOVED that idea and will be checking out the seed lending library to find some more heritage varieties to grow and share what I have collected. Our library also has some great books, (see below)

on learning how to save seeds. This is a wonderful way to become more sustainable and I find it interesting and fun as well. When I’m out in the garden, I always feel like I’m in the midst of a  science experiment. From a social aspect, I feel like I’m contributing in some small way to feeding the world.

Well that’s it blogger friends. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for a season of dreaming, a season of rest. Before I know it, I will be planting seeds for our next year’s crop.

But not quite yet.

Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.

Blessings from Hope

 

Homemade Laundry Detergent

/ Lee Reynolds

It’s Monday and laundry day around here. While everyday is laundry day in our large household, Monday is my BIG laundry day.

It’s the day that I try to strip as many sheets off beds as possible. The older kids love Mondays as it’s the day that they don’t have to make their bed. They do have to bring up their comforters and hang them out on the deck and bring me their sheets and pillow cases though. I love Mondays because at the end of a long, tiring day, I fall into bed with crisp, clean sheets and if I have worked really hard, my pillow cases have been ironed with a spritz of lavender water. Oh heaven!

Since we do so much laundry, loads around here and we use tons of laundry detergent, this was one of the big things I wanted to address by becoming more frugal and certainly more green.

The products I use to make my detergent are simple and the bonus is, I don’t use a new plastic jug of laundry detergent every 2 weeks. Yep, that’s right. I normally go through a large jug of detergent every 2 weeks, so finding an alternative solution was important for our family. Even if you don’t use as much detergent as we do though, you may still be wanting to find a less expensive alternative and one that isn’t filling up our landfills.

Over the course of the last year, I have been playing around with a detergent recipe that works for my family and the level of clean I insist upon. Also, we have hard water to consider as well as an HE laundry team. I’m really happy with what I have come up with and I thought, this being laundry day, I would share my homemade detergent recipe with you and maybe if you aren’t already swayed to make your own detergent, this blog post will entice you to try it out.

It takes literally 10 minutes to make this recipe which will last my family 2 months and costs peanuts compared to buying jugs of detergent from the store.

Here is what you need to make:  Hope’s Homestead Laundry Detergent:

1 cup Borax
1 cup Washing Soda
1 cup Oxi Clean product
1 bar of Ivory soap or other
pure or natural soap
Essential oil (opt)
4 cups of water
40 cups of hot water

Now if you are like me and you haven’t been able to locate washing soda, it’s really easy to make your own, which cuts down on more product and packaging because what you are going to use is a staple in your kitchen and in your natural cleaning supply shelf. It’s baking soda.

Take 1 cups of baking soda, (I usually use 2 cups so I have enough for my washing soda jar since I also use washing soda to make my dishwasher detergent) and put it on a baking sheet.

I spread it nice and thin and pop it in the oven at 400 to 425 degrees (everyone’s oven is different) for an hour. When the timer goes off your baking soda has transformed into washing soda. Voila! Cool hey.

Once you have all your ingredients laid out, (Step 1) start by grating your bar of soap and the skies the limit as to the kind you use, but I would recommend a pure soap and one without colour.

I personally love the smell of ivory soap but the scent is also something to take into consideration. I noticed when I was at the grocery store the other day that there were bars of sunlight soap for sale which would be cool if you want that lemony scent in your laundry detergent but a 3 pack of ivory soap was the same price as the 1 bar of sunlight, so I went for frugal. Also, ivory soap reminds me of my babies.

Step 1, grate your soap

Step 2. Boil 4 cups of water in a shallow pan and add your grated soap. I add mine slowly until it is evenly melted and the water is foamy. This can boil over and make a mess so watch it closely.

Step 3. Find a large pail, preferably with a lid and pour 40 cups of hot water in the pail.

I found that an ice cream bucket holds about 10 cups of water, so I would add 4 buckets of HOT water to my larger bucket. I use an old diaper pail, which is the perfect size and fits nicely in my laundry room. Our little girls are still in diapers at night but we go through so few now that the pail is redundant. One thing about growing children, this is ONE area that I’m not feeling bittersweet about, saying goodbye to diapers.

It’s important you find a bucket with a lid because if your kids are like mine, they will drop things inside, plus there is always the concern of children drowning in buckets with liquid. (or animals)

 

 

 

Once you have filled your large bucket with 40 cups of HOT water, (Step 4), you can add 1 cup of borax, 1 cup of washing soda and 1 cup of your oxi clean product. Mix them in the water until they have dissolved really well.

Step 5. You can now add the foamy soapy water mixture from you pan. Be careful as this can easily splash and burn you. My little one is looking on so I was being very slow and careful as I poured it into the bucket. I normally make this after the kids are in bed for the night. It takes even less time and it’s all ready to go in the morning when I start washing all over again.

And now for the final step, (Step 6) mix it ALL really well. I use a long wooden spoon to stir it.

 

That’s it! Close the lid and leave it over night to set up.

In the morning you will find that it has thickened considerably and has a layer of gel like soap on the top. I mix it again really well and at this point I add my essential oil to the mix. Lavender is my all time favourite as it’s also a disinfectant but you can choose whatever you would like…or nothing at all. Personally, I love the ivory along with the lavender but let your nose be your guide.

The final thing I do, is put some detergent into a reusable jug above my washer and dryer. If I have to pre-soak some extra dirty clothes before washing, the jug makes it easy for me to grab. I have a sink next to my washing machine and I keep a bucket there for any items that need to pre-soak. I have to tell you that I use this detergent to clean our children’s all in one, Kawaii’s cloth diapers without any problem. They have never lost their absorbency and they wash up beautifully. I always pre-soak the diapers before washing as well in this mixture.

For my HE washing machine, I just add whatever amount needed depending on the load of clothes I’m washing.

Two scoops usually does the job. The scoop I use is shown above, next to the jug of detergent.

Happy Washing! I’m grateful to have a laundry basket full of dirty clothes. When my kids come in from outside dirty, I know they have been having fun.

Well, that was a good days work and boy am I ready for those clean sheets tonight.

Thanks for joining me today. Let me know whether I have converted you to the cleaner/greener side of life.

Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.

Blessings from Hope

Homemade dishwasher detergent

/ Lee Reynolds

 

As I grieve over the fact that our oldest daughter has moved to the other side of the world and I miss her terribly, I realize that I can’t just lay in bed and be sad. The thing about having other children is that you have no choice. You have to get up and do what needs doing each day. Oh that reminds me of a wonderful poem I read years ago and I’d love to share it with you now.  The poem is an excerpt from the book called, “The Invitation,” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. Have you read it?

If you are needing the recipe for the dishwasher detergent, because that is eventually the destination of this post, please scroll down to the bottom of the page. Otherwise if you are able and willing to take a diverted path with me, I think there will be a point to this post and it will be about  more than clean dishes.

But who knows, have you ever started on a path and “thought” it was taking you in a certain direction and you ended up being somewhere totally unexpected. Sometimes my posts are like that. We will see where this path takes us.

.

 

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.


Isn’t is amazing? If you haven’t read anything by Oriah check out her writing.I love that part in the poem that talks about wanting to connect with someone who can get up after a night of grief and despair, bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

 

There have many times in my life where I have had to do just that. The day after having an ultrasound, and learning that our much wanted “Soulbaby’s” heart beat had stopped, I had no choice but to go on. I awoke the next morning to light, even though I was surrounded by a grey fog of grief. All around me were happy, chirping voices of our children, waking up for the day and I had to get up. I had to feed them, and care for them. I had to love them. I had to keep going.

The really wonderful lesson I learned during that time of waiting for my body to say good bye to our baby, (my body didn’t want to miscarry) was that grief is full of grace .It takes us into a deeper dimension of human experience, floods us with pain and as waves of grief wash over us, we have glimpses into another realm.  A place of peace. I recall waking each morning to a living night mare, waiting for my body to let go, only to find a hungry little one asking, “what’s for breakfast.” I was humbly grateful for the children already in my care. They anchored me to this life and allowed me to see the beauty in the world. Loving those ones and loosing others, are all part of the experience we call life.

And while letting go of our oldest can’t even compare to that time of grief, or others I have felt, for she is very much alive and well. We are excited for her to continue her life’s journey, I’m still so sad that she will not share my day to day life events. I will miss making carrot cake for her and seeing her smile as she savours it. I will miss the smell of her fresh, sweet scent and oh the music that filled the house as she played on her piano will leave an echo of longing in me.

But today, I realize that the dishes still need to be washed, the children need to be fed, the house needs cleaning. I must nurture the children remaining and allow their childhood memories to flourish so they can carry them out into the world just as their big sister is doing now.

What is the big drama going on in your life? What do you think is really going on and what are you learning from your experience and situation?

Is there a “mundane” task that can be taken on with sacred appreciation so you can find joy in the moment?

And so FINALLY, after much ado…the dishes. Those dirty dishes ground us!
 

 

We renovated our kitchen a number of years ago and bought a highly regarded Bosch dishwasher with a stainless steel drum and enough cycles to confuse a person but it has never cleaned our dishes really well. 

 

Sorry it’s a fuzzy pic…but here is my kitchen…our dishwasher is next to our sink

I have tried all the various cycles on our dishwasher. I’ve experimented with all the various top selling dishwasher detergents, as well as tried a few final rinse products but our dishes never get really clean. I don’t think I’m the only one either. I was really getting tired of watching my children pull the glasses and dishes from the cupboards and scrutinize them with a discerning eye which made me feel like I was a horrible housekeeper. Occasionally I would tell them that they need to go and live in a third world country for awhile to appreciate a clean dish here, well almost clean anyway. Then several times this year we had their friends visit and as my children inspected cups to serve their guests, their friends would say, oh yeah we have to do that at our house too. Hmmmm.

This summer during one of the weeks that I was trying to stretch our budget and during another of my rants on how we were  drowning in product packaging, I found this really great recipe for dishwasher detergent. You know what it works. REALLY WORKS! at cleaning our dishes.

The first time I used my new homemade dishwasher bombs, they left my dishes squeaky clean. So if you are interested in having clean dishes too, THEN check out this recipe and make a batch for your family. It’s this kind of stuff that keeps me grounded on this earth and thankful to have another day to experience life. Even when it is tinged with sadness and grief. Oh and the best part, it costs next to nothing, the ingredients are in any well stocked kitchen as they are used in many cleaning and baking recipes and it’s all environmentally friendly with no toxins. You gotta love that.

Hope’s homemade dishwasher detergent  

Ingredients

1 cup of washing soda ~if you have difficulty finding this…you can make it…see below~
1 cup baking soda
3 tbsp of citric acid
1 cup of coarse salt
1 cup of water
Opt: Essential Oil of your choice…Lavender or Tea Tree Oil are a disinfectant

I didn’t have any citric acid in my house so I used the lemonade mix my best friend gave me during her last visit…first ingredient…citric acid…voila. Thanks Tamara!

If you are unable to find washing soda, all you have to do is place 1 cup of baking soda in a baking sheet for 1 hour at 425 degrees F, spread it thinly and it will magically transform into washing soda. My sciency son Clark was impressed the first time I made this and he reminded me how important chemistry is in our lives.

Directions

In a medium size bowl mix all the ingredients together. If you are wanting a powdered detergent you are done after adding all the dry ingredients. Just put it in a container with a scoop and enjoy.

I added water to the mix though. Once you add water the mixture will fizz for a few minutes. Once the fizzing has stopped you can mix it further. This hardens rather fast so you need to work quickly. Take a teaspoon size scoop and mash the mixture into individual ice cube trays or you can make little balls like I did and lay them on a cookie sheet to dry for 24 hours.

Letting my “bomb” dry in our laundry room

When they are firm you can put them in a container and start using them. If you want to add any essential oil just add it with the water. I added lavender to our first batch which had a lovely lemon and lavender scent.

I found the perfect container to put under my sink

When I have a pot or pan that is unusually dirty, I just mash a bomb into the soaking pan and let it sit overnight and in the morning I easily clean it. Sometimes you have to take the gritty mixture and scrub the pot with it so it’s really clean. I love this so I have also eliminated scrubbing pads.

 

I want to also share that I have stopped adding any type of rinsing solution to my dishwasher and now only add a few tbsps of vinegar to my machine. Results: clean, green dishes.

You know I was thinking about my great grandmothers and all the work they had to perform before the invention of  appliances and convenient kitchen products, theyhey also lived in a time when there was a lot of grief. I mean my own grandmother had 8 children, of whom only 6 made it through childhood, also there were childhood diseases and accidents, all more mainstream than they are now so having a lot more housework and just keeping their families fed took enormous amounts of energy. Maybe this was how they were able to cope with living in those times.

Being more sustainable is trendy now. It is certainly a greener choice and one of frugality but there is another side benefit; it allows us to be mindfully connected by doing simple chores and remembering that although feeling whatever drama is occurring in our lives is an important aspect of this earthly experience, being grateful for the small things in life gives us the greatest joy. Who knew, clean dishes was so huge!

Until I see you again, may you be well, happy, and peaceful.

Blessings from Hope

Green Living Tips~Conscious Consumption

/ Lee Reynolds

 

What to do with all the stuff that families accumulate?

I was a little kid in the 60’s and a teenager in the 70’s. What I remember of those times were that peace and love were big (a couple of my older sisters were “hippies…one even had a Volkswagon bus) and in the 70’s all the garbage cans were painted to resemble hungry green monsters with  gaping mouths just waiting to consume some garbage. Signs were everywhere saying:

Needless to say, my formative years were spent believing in creating harmony and a healthy, clean earth. Somewhere along the way though I got caught up in my education, building my career, living my life. In the 80’s I was a young woman. The message I  heard was that you can do anything and have it all…..the excess that everyone was accumulating and the entitlement was making me sick by the end of that decade. Looking back, I realize that it was just a matter of time that I would find my way back to my first impressionable beliefs, we needed to live consciously and harmoniously with Mother Earth.

And that brings me to my green tip when you have a family. Be a careful consumer.

When you have kids, stuff just accumulates…I don’t even know how it happens. Well, it starts the moment people hear you are having a baby. Things just start appearing on your doorstep. Beware. The stuff comes.

Also, the moment you start reading books on being a good parent it seems as if you need stuff as a tool to be the perfect parent. When I think about that fancy baby nursery we filled and then decorated for our first daughter, who was only happy while in my arms, it makes me cringe. At the time though we bought into all that crap. My advise from day one is be very selective. If you have to have something then look for it second hand. Babies grow so fast that nothing ever gets really used.

If you have well meaning parents, family and friends who want to help with the ‘stuff’ then ask them to be conscious as well for the next generations sake and select gently used items for your baby/children. It’s just makes sense for the environment and for the pocket book. Better to put your money in the bank and start an education savings account for your baby/children.

We have learned these lessons well though and somewhere along our parenting path we realized that we were inundated with kid stuff….I think our first sale was when our oldest daughter was 9. We had just had our 4th baby the December before and he was our third beautiful son in a row. It was time to let go of baby girl’s clothes. Well actually it was more like 9 years of girls stuff….not that we differentiate….if our boys wanted to wear pink and play with dolls that was cool in our books.

 

It felt so good to let go of those items and it was time for me to also surrender my dream for any other daughters. It made me so happy to see so many other families thrilled to receive beautiful items we had had stored in our crawl space for years. Special energy (check out the Art of Feng Shui ) comes when you release stuff. Whether it is actual stuff, an idea or even a dream, it’s freeing. We realized how abundantly blessed we were as we let go.

I should write a post about planning a successful garage sale because I’m the queen of an organized, almost staged looking garage sale. Everything in it’s own category, prices clearly marked and I’m great at condensing as things move. My husband D discovered a hidden talent. He can move our crap. Although, we were told that our stuff was “good stuff” by our garage sale customers. It helps if things are gently used, clean and it pays to keep the boxes things come in when you are trying to sell them. If you have the space keep them as you get more money when they are in their original box. Well there are a few garage sale tips even though this isn’t really what this blog post is about.

What I wanted to write about was sharing a few green tips….I’m getting there….stay with me.

Each Spring break we de-clutter. I have my kids go through their drawers, closets and toys. If they are too young to decide if something needs to be “dumped, donated, re-purposed or sold,” I would quickly review things for them, but as early as I can I get them involved. At even age two, my kids know if they love a piece of clothing or a toy but my advice,  go through the stuffies when they are napping. If they haven’t ask for that toy in a week, you are good to go with donating it to another child.

I think it’s good for children to see things for what they are, just belongings that can be used as needed but when they are no longer used they can let it go. They will also see how abundant they will feel with less as well.

I grew up with parents who were children during the depression. I don’t really know what my Dad’s experience was but my mom didn’t have much. My mom talks about how she loved the Eaton catalogue. She would cut whole families, all their outfits, household belongings and treasure them. When she grew up she became the ultimate at re-purposing an item. Even tiny scraps of material became something and I loved when she gave me little boxes and old bottles for my Barbie house. Even an old kleenex box became a great bed for my dolls.

But she had a hard time letting things go. She wasn’t a hoarder by any stretch, as we never had that much stuff but she knew how to reuse anything. I have a little bit of that and as I get older and greener, I’m growing to be more that way. Although, when our older kids were small, we had to do the yearly BIG de-clutter or we would be overwhelmed with a jam packed house. One thing I really love about doing a thorough sweep, is you find things you have been looking for, and often during our de-clutter sessions we hear our kids say,  “Wow, I wonder where “that” went!” Suddenly, it was like they had new toys and clothes.

The nice thing for me is that we learned the value in letting go and allowing some space to wash over us. We feel abundant after a good clean and de-clutter, oh yeah, did I mention that we also clean the house while we are purging. This is a big step too as we are clearing out dirt that accumulates as well. Oh the feeling of peace/ It makes me want to sort through a drawer right now. Well almost

And did I tell you all the benefits of the garage sale as well? Our kids have become mini entrepreneurs as they plan the garage sale with me. Some have developed astute business sense. Some diversified what we had for sale by suggesting I bake some of my delicious chocolate chip cookies, the ones with the mint chips. Also, we are famous in our neighbourhood for our popcorn so of course we make lots the morning of the sale and put it into brown bags to purchase. Then if you are eating our popcorn you get thirsty so one of the kids suggested making lemonade. Of course the kind from scratch.

The kids often raked in more from the treats than from selling their belongings and most of our customers said our garage sale was their favourite. Nice to know we can do it up right and make it a pleasant experience for those looking to get good deals and help the environment at the same time.

The saying that has stuck with me is,

~Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make It Do, or Do Without!~

When we are conscious consumers, we make careful choices on what we bring into our homes and how they impact the energy in our family and the environment. Every single thing we choose has an impact, so make wise decisions. 

 

 

 

Until I see you again, may you be well, happy, de-cluttered and peaceful.

Blessings from Hope

 

 

 

 

 

The Soilful Life

/ Lee Reynolds

What do you think is the most important part of a homestead?

In my opinion it’s soil. In order to grow the most productive garden for our needs we need to produce it in fertile soil. So I thought one of my first posts would be on that topic.

Our home was built on land that was once an old orchard but it is also on the side of a small mountain so it contains a lot of rock. Shale type rock to be precise which makes great drainage but doesn’t hold a lot of nutrients. So after building our home we had some good top soil delivered and we landscaped our yard using that soil. When I decided to grow a veggie garden my husband built two raised beds for us and hauled wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of top soil to fill the boxes. At the time we didn’t know any other way to build the soil.

Every spring, I would add compost, peat moss and some sand to our garden. I never tested the soil. I would smell it and hold it in my hands and when it looked and smelled rich and earthy, I felt that it would be the perfect medium. One year our small town was offering “Earth Machine” compost bins for a reasonable price and we brought one home and put in at the end of our garden area.

I never learned the true art of composting at the time. We would just throw in yard debris (notice, when you live in an urban/suburban type setting you call it yard debris and not farm debris as you would out in the country) and of course our kitchen scraps as well. It was amazing how it just kept taking everything we would throw in and it never seemed to fill up. This particular compost bin is a bit awkward in that there is only a small door and opening at the bottom to retrieve the finished compost.

Still, I started pulling out the small bit of compost it produced each Spring and add it to our small garden. The production of food was great. I figured out that when you have optimum soil you can intensive garden, which meant that we didn’t need as much space to produce more food.

I   L-O-N-G-E-D  to be able to grow more veggies so I convinced my husband and older sons to chainsaw some large mugho pine bushes and junipers in a bed that was approximately 5’x 50′. Not large but would allow my garden to be more diverse.

Once all the plants and their roots were finally removed (a long process…SO THINK carefully before you plant an area with plants you can’t eat) I started improving the soil. The first fall I brought purchased bags of compost in and spread them around. The following spring we  added bags of steer and mushoom manure, along with peat moss. We then double dug it in the garden.As I worked the earth, I removed rocks and broke up the soil to be a fine till. The first harvest was really great and we had so much garden debris (corn and squash produce tons of debris for the compost)…..so much debris that we needed to build another compost bin.

One day, I saw a pallet outside of the business where my oldest son works part time and it said, “Free!” I went home and made a case for re-purposing throwaway items. This was a tough sell because of another recently pleaded case that didn’t go well. Last fall I drove by a house with a gorgeous entertainment unit with the lovely sign saying, “Free” on it. I pleaded for my husband to bring it home. He said he was busy at work and suggested I ask our older sons to haul it home. After much discussion they agreed. They couldn’t fit it in our larger vehicle at the time so they decided to haul it home. Thankfully it was in our neighbourhood and thankfully they had been working out at our local gym because it was really heavy.

That unit sat in our living room for about 6 months. When people came to our house I shared the whole story and how inventive we were…or would be with the item. Some people thought this was ingenious and some looked at me like I had lost my mind but I was on my green path at this time so I ignored it. It grew a bit thin though over the time it was here as every time my daughter had to play the piano (almost every day) she moved it away from the bench so she had room to sit.

ANYWAY, the end of the story is that we tried to re-purpose it in several ways but it was always too big or inappropriate for what we were planning. We then tried to sell it on Craigslist thinking surely someone would want it and we did get some calls but no one ever showed up. We even tried to give it away in the end. Finally, FINALLY, my husband took it apart and sadly, oh me saddest of all, took it to the landfill where we had to pay to have them deal with it. I didn’t even get to save the hardware from the unit. So that is my story of re-purposing gone WAY wrong.

Back to my free pallet story, after much debate and going down memory lane regarding the pre- mentioned said unit, my husband and son retrieved it.  This time it worked out beautifully. Along with some wood scraps in our garage my husband made me another compost bin. You would think he had given me a diamond! I was dancing around and oh so thrilled when he finally set it in the corner of our garden. It has been tremendously useful. I like compost bins all over the place for ease when you are out on your homestead..

Now our own compost bins were really cooking and after doing some reading on creating the best compost I realized that there was an art. Yes, you can just add anything to your compost bin and it will turn into great soil but knowing how to layer the browns (carbon matter) along with the greens (nitrogen matter) was really effective on creating rich compost really fast. And this got me to thinking how we create good soil from all sorts of matter and how we grow as people. We can throw all sorts of life lessons on the path and we will surely grow but when we start living consciously, well that is when things seem to really speed up our soul’s growth. The art of living soulfully and the art of building our soilful homestead is closely connected.

Okay, enough spirit talk…my oldest daughter would say sappy talk.
my pallet inspired compost bin
Isn’t our pallet/compost bin lovely?

I know only people who loves to grow stuff can truly appreciate a compost bin. It’s how we contain beautiful rich potential soil….just as our body is the container for our spirit. I have grown so much……not just with my philosophy on becoming sustainable and appreciate mother earth, but in my faith. My garden has taught me much about looking inside my heart, trusting my gut and knowing how to grow as a soul and grow the food for my family. Don’t you think they are closely related.

Last fall, since both of our compost bins were full to the brim I decided to dig large holes all over my garden. As we cleaned up our yard and gathered leaves and debris as well as our kitchen scraps, we used those holes as our compost. I later learned that this is a type of trench compost. As I filled the holes, I would add a bit of dirt so it didn’t attract pests….although we don’t have many….last summer we did have a raccoon family in our area but I haven’t seen anything “wild” in a while. By the end of fall, I had filled holes all over our garden area and this spring the dirt was loose and rich, full of wonderful matter. It’s only July but our garden is producing wonderfully.

So whether you are using purchased compost, or growing your own in fancy purchased compost bins, homemade pallet bins like we now have or whether you do trench composting which is my favourite yet….(no turning, no moving, no digging in)….they will all improve your earth and give you the soil that you need for your homestead.

And that gets me back to the soul side of things….it doesn’t matter in life how you learn, how you layer the lessons, we all have our own stories and trials and tribulations. What matters is that we keep planting and watering our dreams. We keep putting down roots and pulling the weeds. No matter how we live our life, we grow as souls.

I’m blooming where I’m planted. How is the soil/soul in your part of the world?

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”
– Rachel Carson

Thanks for reading. Until I see you again, may you be well, peaceful and happy.

Blessings from Hope