Slow Living

It is always lovely to look back and reflect on what you have done over the previous weeks or months, taking stock, observing changes and celebrating achievements.  Even better if you can join together and see hat others have been doing too in their part of the world, blogging is a wonderful way of making the world a smaller place.  Christine over a Slow Living Essentials started this wonderful reflection and has now passed the baton onto Linda at Greenhaven for the monthly link up here are mine for February...

...nourish I have porridge for breakfast every morning in the winter, complete with some mashed banana and a teaspoon of slippery elm.  I have been meaning to soak the oats for some time now as I was sure that I had read somewhere that the oats were more digestible if you did.  I was intermittently remembering to soak them until I read an interesting blog post about soaking your oats and I knew that I had to try and remember.  I have taken to setting an alarm on my mobile phone to remind me to do this, until it becomes part of my evening routine.  The porridge tastes so much better for it, I soak mine in water and a dash of cider vinegar, but I am yet to be convinced that it makes me feel any better but maybe the benefits take a while to be felt?

...prepare I have a second alarm on my mobile phone to remind me to do something each evening and that is to feed my sourdough starter.  A few years ago when Alice was small I had a sourdough starter which I managed to keep going for a number of years.  Sadly, for reasons that I can no longer remember, that starter died and I had to throw it away.  I have been meaning to start one again for some time now but to get one going you have to feed it every day for a number of days, we were away quite a bit in January so it became a February job.  It is is looking and smelling good and I hope that in March it will be ready to make and bake bread with it.

...reduce my small pile of clothes that I mentioned last month got a little smaller this month.  I made a pair of trousers for Alice from an old pair of mine.  You can read how I did it here.

...green I have posted before in these refections about my uses of bicarb, I make deodorant, washing powder, dishwasher powder, carpet deodoriser, and wash surfaces with it.  I also use it to wash my hair in place of shampoo.  I started by using a recipe that I found on the web, a few months later I tweaked it slightly, then when I started swimming regularly it all went to pot and I had to add a Vitamin C rinse at the start.  There are many websites that give you advice which is based on the individuals findings but I have found that these don't really work for me.  There are so many factors to think about that it is likely that every person who washed their hair in this way would use a slightly different method.  So if you have ever tried it or are considering doing so then the only advice I would give is to persevere and keep trying different quantities of bicarb and water (and cider vinegar and water to condition if you are doing that too) until you find the one that works for you.  If you live in a hard water area then the bicarb will not dissolve as well in the water so it will not work that well. If your hair is getting very dry, reduce the amount of bicarb, if your hair is getting very greasy then reduce the amount of vinegar.  It is important to remember that what you eat effects your hair too!  I wash my hair once a week using this method, I have long hair ( a couple of inches below my shoulders) and I can wear it down all week.

...grow we have a few edible plants growing in the garden at the moment.  The snowdrops have been delighting us with their presence for a few weeks but no other bulbs have made an appearance, yet.  My rhubarb that I split late last year seems to have survived the hacking and all three plants have started to sprout.  I have cleared the polytunnel of all the plants that have died over the winter and it is now ready for Spring sowing, there are a few salad leaves that have survived the winter which we are enjoying with our meals.  I have bought all my seeds for the year now and am ready to go when the weather warms up.  Inside my sprouter is providing us all with some crunch to go with our winter salads.

...create I always do more of this in the Winter when there is nothing to do in my garden, so I have been trying to think about some of the Spring projects to make for all the birthdays coming up at a time when the garden is also pulling on my time.  I have made the pair of trousers mentioned under 'green', I made a skirt for Alice, some more coasters like those that I share last month and a shawl that I cast on last month is now ready for blocking before being sent off as a gift.  I also ripped all the stitches out of a cardigan I had been knitting for myself and cast on a different pattern with the same yarn.  I knew that I if I carried on I would be knitting something that would not be worn so despite it seeming like a lot of effort for little gain I knew it was the right thing to do.

...discover I have been planning a topic based on the solar eclipse that we will have in our part of the world in March.  As well as thinking about learning for the children I have also been finding interesting books to read for myself.  I have started a trilogy of books which are fiction based on historical facts. I have really enjoyed reading the first one this month and look forward to reading the other two books in March.

...enhance several people have mentioned in the last month or so that it would be lovely to have a home ed camp this year at some point.  We have been talking about doing this for a few years now, so I decided it was time I did something about it.  I have been making enquiries of various campsites to see whether they will accommodate such a group and hope to advertise it to my fellow home edders soon.

...enjoy we have been to a new home ed group this month, it has been running for a while but we haven't been as I wrongly thought it was going to be a really long drive.  We have made several new friends and hope to make this a regular commitment in our week.

Slow Living

It is always lovely to look back and reflect on what you have done over the previous weeks or months, taking stock, observing changes and celebrating achievements.  Even better if you can join together and see hat others have been doing too in their part of the world, blogging is a wonderful way of making the world a smaller place.  Christine over a Slow Living Essentials started this wonderful reflection and has now passed the baton onto Linda at Greenhaven for the monthly link up here are mine for January...

...nourish I have felt a desire for pies this month.  Warm, nourishing food after time outside in the cold.  Each week we have had a least one meal if not two.  A lentil pie with mash potato topping, a spinach and feta filling wrapped in puff pastry, a leek and squash pie, are just a few that have made it to our menus.

...prepare we seem to be spending more and more days of the week having lunch away from the home.  This means I have to provide a nourishing lunch that will keep us warm and full.  Most evenings whilst cooking the evening meal I have also been making a pan of soup to eat, on some occasions I have made a large enough quantity to freeze some ensuring that I have a supply for 'emergencies', you never know when you might need soup.......

...reduce I have a small pile of clothes in a drawer that are beyond repair but the material could be put to good use so I have kept them.  An old pair of linen trousers have been transformed into mats for hot drinks with a piece of old towel in the middle they are the perfect thing to protect our tables from being marked.  I shared a how I did it here.   I also started on a pair of trousers for my youngest from an old pair of mine.

...green we have been visiting and staying with friends and family quite a bit over the last weeks/months.  It has been lovely to spend extended time with the ones we love but it has created a lot of washing for me.  A skin condition that developed a few years ago has meant that the only washing powder I can use is one I make myself.  There are times when touching items washed in other cleaners can make it worse so I usually take my own bedding with me!  The powder I make is a simple combination of borax and bicarbonate of soda, equal amounts of each.  We keep a jar of the mix on the kitchen counter as we use this mix in the dishwasher too.  I use a tablespoon and a half to two tablespoons per wash depending on how dirty the items are.  I add two tablespoons of white vinegar and seven drops of lavender oil as a fabric conditioner.  I have noticed that using the lavender oil has really reduced the amount of moths I have been finding in the house.

...grow it is also quiet on the growing front for me at this time of year.  We are in the middle of Winter now and it is too cold for much to grow.  The hardy herbs are still providing me with their leaves for cooking and I still have a small amount of salad leaves growing in my polytunnel which provides a welcome bit of raw green to my meals.

...create January is often a quiet month for me after the busyness of creating for Christmas.  Perhaps because I managed to make everything in good time that has not been the case this January.  I have been knitting a lot, a cardigan that now has sleeves attached and the beginnings of a yoke, a scarf that I am writing the pattern for as I knit, a sock which is growing slowly and a shawl which I cast on a few days ago and is growing very fast.  I have also made some more fabric bowls as a birthday present for a friend, the start of a pair of trousers from an old pair of mine and the project mentioned under reduce.

...discover I have been keen to observe more of the old traditions and festivals this year.  I have been writing them into my diary for a while now but not actually finding out about them and adding them to our week.  This month we have been finding out about Plough Monday and Wassailing, both very similar traditions based on the type of agricultural practiced in the area.

...enhance I am an assessor for the D of E Award, these award, there are three levels, is started at age 14 and includes an unaccompanied expedition which is what I assess.  Although I have not assessed any this month (they have to be completed between Easter and October when the weather is usually less serious) I have added four dates into my diary this month for later in the year.  This is the most I have ever completed in a year and some of them are in places where we can take a short holiday when we are there, I am really looking forward to them all!

...enjoy we have two weekends away this month one to stay with my brother the other with an old friend they have both been filled with fun.

Slow Living

It is always lovely to look back and reflect on what you have done over the previous weeks or months, taking stock, observing changes and celebrating achievements.  Even better if you can join together and see hat others have been doing too in their part of the world, blogging is a wonderful way of making the world a smaller place.  Christine over a Slow Living Essentials started this wonderful reflection and has now passed the baton onto Linda at Greenhaven for the monthly link up here are mine for December...

...nourish December can be a month of overeating.  When I worked in a supermarket in my late teens and early twenties I was always amazed at the quantity of food people would buy at that time of year. I know that many people do so because they are cooking for many more people than they usually would but I can't help wandering how much more food waste there is at this time of year compared to the other eleven months.  I have tried to keep our diet simple this month as I know that the potential for upset tummies is higher.  I am not, and never have been, a fan of the rich foods such as mince pies, Christmas pudding and Christmas cake that are traditional so I am looking forward to getting that back on track in January.

...prepare it is the season for parties and sharing food with friends.  I have made quite a bit of food that we have added to buffets and Jacobs join meals with friends.  Simple dishes such as dips and vegetable sticks, homemade bread sticks, hummus and falafel are what I tend to make to share.

...reduce December is the time of year when consumption and spending can be excessive.  The scenes we have seen from Black Friday were thoroughly depressing to me.  I had an idea for a present I could make for a few of the children I give presents too and realised that I could make them from bits I had already.  These charming little baskets are a great way to use up small pieces of material, I had to buy a small amount of interfacing (used to stiffen them slightly) but the rest I found in my stash.  My husband also made two presents out of pieces of wood he had in the workshop, a saw horse and a lee board (for use on a canoe when sailing).

...green last month I mentioned my uses of bicarb including as a carpet deodoriser and one commenter asked for the recipe so I thought I would share it here.  I have used this successfully in our bathroom which is not a room I would choose to have a carpet in but we inherited it with the house.  We have yet to refurbish the bathroom, and will definitely be installing a different flooring when we do, small children and carpeted bathrooms do not a good combination make!  Now back to the deodoriser.....here is my recipe I adapted it from one which makes a very large quantity, I did not want/need to make that much:

4 tbs bicarb

1 tsp borax

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp ground cinamon

You can also add 1 tsp of finely chopped dried mint, rosemary, lavender and thyme I didnt have all of these so I just added rosemary and thyme.

Mix all the ingredients together and sprinkle on the carpet where you need it, leave on the carpet as long as possible and Hoover up.  I do this last thing at night and Hoover up in the morning.

...grow we are in the middle of our coldest weather now, it is too cold for anything edible to grow.  This time of year is all about tidying, weeding and fertilising.  I have managed to get into the garden a few times to deadhead, tidy, and spread our own compost and horse manure that we collect from a neighbours family farm.  It is good to give the soil a rest for a bit making it ready for the growing months.

...create I try to make as many presents as I can as gifts for Christmas and Birthdays.  In years past I have knitted most of these but I was finding it took up about six months of the year which was just too long.  This year I knitted a few and sewed many which actually meant I made many more presents in less time, five people were not given anything handmade at all, they were all given a book instead.  The rest (eighteen) got one sometimes two handmade things and my husband made two presents too, maybe in the not too distant future we can make and give at least one homemade present to each person?

...discover I have been trying to focus more on festivals in the last few months of this year, finding a way to either observe them or to enhance our learning and knowledge about other cultures, religions and countries. As Advent drew nearer I halfheartedly thought about ways we could observe the four weeks leading up to Christmas.  I have read about different ways that people do this and I wanted something simple that would work as a focus for the weeks which we could work into what we do.  I settle on a focus for each week using the four festivals adopted by steiner/waldorf methodsof learning and it worked so well for us that I know we will use this again.  I kept it simple this year but I know that we can use this as the focus of our learning at this time of year for many years to come and am looking forward to planning more activities in the future.

...enhance I had a knock on the door early in the month from our local councillor.  Here in the UK some local services are run at a fairly local level with some money trickling down from central government and some paid locally.  Every four years we get a chance to elect who we would like to represent us on the council to ensure our local taxes are being spent wisely, our local councillor wishes to stand down before the next election and asked me if I would like to stand in his place.  I was rather taken aback, it is not something I had even considered.  I have mulled it over and decided it is not for me but I was very flattered to be asked.

...enjoy this month has to be about celebrating Christmas with family and New Year with friends.  Knowing that this will happen and does so every year is reassuring and comfortable.  It is a very busy, bustley (is that a word?) time of year and it is easy to lose focus which for me is about family and friends.  It should be a time of coming together and enjoying each other's company and that is exactly what we had this year, a perfect end to another good year.

Slow Living

It is always lovely to look back and reflect on what you have done over the previous weeks or months, taking stock, observing changes and celebrating achievements.  Even better if you can join together and see hat others have been doing too in their part of the world, blogging is a wonderful way of making the world a smaller place.  Christine over a Slow Living Essentials started this wonderful reflection and has now passed the baton onto Linda at Greenhaven for the monthly linkup  here are mine for November...

...nourish we have moved into root season, most of what we eat over the coming months is root vegetables.  I am loving this at the moment but I know by early Spring I will be yearning for the lightness of some Spring veg which is always slow in coming.  For now we are enjoying the delights of Colcannon and Root Veg and Blue Cheese Bake amongst others.

...prepare I have made a lot of soup this month eating some but much of it ending up in the freezer to be used over the coming months for extras at lunch when we fancy soup as well as whatever else we are having.  I have also made a huge batch of rolls, instant lunch!

...reduce we celebrated a birthday this month which always means more stuff coming into the house. It is at birthdays and Christmas that I usually have a big clear out.  So this month I have been finding bits and pieces from all over the house that we make no use of anymore.  I regularly clear out the children's clothes with the changes of the season anyway this was about books, toys and similar.  I had a huge bag of books and games to take to the charity shop, it was so heavy I am surprised I managed to carry it!  The spaces they left have soon been filled by the piles of things without homes!

...green despite my making considerable use of it I have realised that I have never posted about bicarb of soda or as some call it baking soda.  Since finding that I could not tolerate Limonene on my skin, an ingredient in all the household cleaners and toiletries in my house I have been using this as a replacement.  It has become my shampoo, my surface cleaner on all surfaces including floors, a carpet deodoriser, to make deodorant and toothpaste, a dishwasher powder and a washing powder for clothes!

...grow you would be forgiven for thinking that not a lot was growing in my garden at the moment given the cool temperatures at this time of year but I have been amazed to find that some lettuce plants that I sewed late in the summer are still going strong.  We are having regular frosts but still these plants are fine.  They are not growing but they are big enough that I can pick leaves each week for my lunch!  This month has been about tidying up in the garden, weeding and dead heading.  My compost bin is very grateful for the extra food!  I have sown garlic and spring bulbs in readiness for next year.  I have also got round to doing a job I have been meaning to do for about five years, dividing my rhubarb plant.  You can only do it in the dormant period of the plant which is about now, end of Autumn/beginning of Winter.  It is usually so horrible weather wise at that time of year, either we are covered in snow or it is wet and grey, but it is now done, I am hoping that I have not killed the plant of completely time will tell.......

...create it has been another busy month on the creative front, making presents mostly.  I have sewn up a bag for my mum to carry her music out and about in, I noticed she was using a sturdy paper bag when I last visited.  I have also sewn five fabric bowls from this lovely book they are really quick to make up!  I have also made another cape a birthday present for a friend of my youngest.  My needles have been busy too making hats, one for me, and one you can read about below, and rows on a cardigan for me, a vest and a scarf as a present.  I also managed to finish of a cardigan that has been waiting for buttons and ends weaving in, it is lovely and warm, perfect of the cooler weather we now have.

...discover I love to cook, always from scratch.  I posted about my recipe books and how I use them earlier this month.  I have come across a few books recently on the web that are about the wonderful food of the Middle East, of Lebanon, Iran, Syria to name but a few and I discovered one in the library that I have been reading this month.  It is the best kind of book about food, one with recipes interwoven with life, in this case that of the author Anissa Helou.  The recipes make me want to head straight into the kitchen and start chopping.

...enhance I knitted a hat this month, nothing special in that I suppose but it was knitted for a lady I have never met nor am I likely too.  A fellow blogger put out a request for knitted hats for a friend of hers who was about to start chemotherapy, the hats were to keep her head warm in the cold of winter as the chemo usually results in hair loss.  The hat was knitted and sent to the US with my best wishes for her recovery.

...enjoy the highlight this month has been celebrating the birth of my eldest.  He turned ten which felt like a significant age to reach, I am sure I will say that when he reaches other ages in the next few years too!  In some ways it doesn't feel as if I have been a parent for ten years, but in others well.........!  We didn't have a party because that is not my eldest's style we had three days of fun.  First with a day out birdwatching, the middle day his actual birthday we spent at forest school and the last day he had a friend over for an afternoon play and tea.

Slow Living

It is always lovely to look back and reflect on what you have done over the previous weeks or months, taking stock, observing changes and celebrating achievements.  Even better if you can join together and see what others have been doing too in their part of the world, blogging is a wonderful way of making the world a smaller place.  Christine over a Slow Living Essentials started this wonderful reflection and has now passed the baton onto Linda at Greenhaven for the monthly linkup  here are mine for October...

...nourish with the weather cooling, although in some parts of the UK you would be forgiven for thinking that Autumn has passed them by, we have been eating a lot of soup.  It is a welcome warm addition to our picnic lunch we eat at Forest School each week.  I have also spent a large amount of time making food to take on an expedition/holiday we had at the end of the month.  I am unable to eat food with preservatives in so any food we eat on holiday I usually precook and reheat or take the ingredients to cook whilst away.  On an expedition it is so much quicker to precook all the meals but this does mean that I spend the week before cooking, cooking, cooking!

...prepare aside from the masses of food I prepared for the expedition I have also been doing a bit more preserving.  This month I made Pickled Onions and Cucumbers (not together!) and with some apples that I ended up buying from the Famers Market, usually I go to a local orchard to pick my supply, I made Apple Butter and Chutney.  I have now a good stocked pantry ready for the Winter, although the rosehip syrup I made last month has nearly gone now.

...reduce my husband is always saving things from being thrown in skips, he often comes home from work with items that 'might have a use one day'.  For a good while we have been storing two cable drum ends, a further one has been put to good use under our large rainwater tank, but the other two were waiting for their future to be revealed.  We attend a forest school each week and we were in need of a surface to work on, one that we could leave in the woods.  I knew the cable drum would be perfect for the job.  It has so far been used to plants tree seeds, water filtering and preparing apple cordial.

...green I made some more toothpaste at the beginning of the month, I am still using it daily (not whilst we were away tho' its a bit messy for that).  I visited the Dentist for my six month check this month and he commented on the improvement in my teeth so it seems that although it is not the most pleasant taste/texture it is worth persevering with.

Last month I mentioned that I had started to trial a new method for washing my hair after swimming. I have continued to use this method though out October and it is great my hair is much improved.  One week I tried not using the bicarb/vinegar wash post the Vitamin C rinse but my hair was very greasy by the end of the following week (I only wash my hair once a week) so it does need to washed and conditioned when I get home.

...grow I sowed some winter lettuce and salad greens this month.  Some from seed and some from seedlings which I got for free from a local Apple Day.  I am hoping that I will have some lovely salad to munch on throughout the winter.  That said we are having such a mild autumn that the lettuces I sowed in the late summer are still thriving outdoors!  I have also sown many tulip bulbs which I hope will flower in the Spring, provided the mice don't eat the bulbs first......

...create I have been knitting much more this month, in the evenings with the fire lit it is a great way to wind down.  I have been adding rows to a scarf and cardigan which are still on the needles.  I knitted up a hat for myself in the hope I could take it away with me, but I need to rip some of the rows and add to it as it is a bit short, I wanted it to cover my ears and it doesn't quite reach.  I also sewed up another fabric bucket for my youngest to store her soft toys in and a handkerchief bag for storing our hankies in so that they are accessible downstairs rather than tucked away in a basket in my wardrobe.

...discover I have been reading a wonderful book about one of greatest loves, trees.  I have enhanced my knowledge and I am still entranced by these marvellous plants.

...enhance I had been due to assess a group on an expedition in Scotland this month, it was the reason that we were going away ourselves.  I had to make the heart rendering decision to pull the plug, made even worse as it was at the eleventh hour.  The timing coincided with a vicious storm that swept through North West Scotland, a whole month of rain falling over a two day period (300mm) the streams were swollen and many roads were flooded.  The month had been spend in organising this expedition and checking that the group were ready to go out into the hills.  It will have to wait for another time.

...enjoy despite having to cancel the expedition we still had a memorable few days in Scotland.  We camped the first night but it was so wet and windy we bailed out and stayed in a wee chalet for a few days hoping that the weather forecast was correct and there would be a small window of good weather later in the week.  There was and we had the most amazing two nights on the shores of Loch Arkaig.  The rain earlier in the week had filled the loch to overflowing (a good two or three feet over the wall you can see in the middle picture at the bottom left side of the page on the last link)  the road was underwater so we offloaded our canoes and equipment, parked the car on safe high ground and canoed down the road to the loch!  It was a memorable trip for so many reasons.

Slow Living

It is always lovely to look back and reflect on what you have done over the previous weeks or months, taking stock, observing changes and celebrating achievements.  Even better if you can join together and see what others have been doing too in their part of the world, blogging is a wonderful way of making the world a smaller place.  Christine over a Slow Living Essentials started this wonderful reflection and has now passed the baton onto Linda at Greenhaven for the monthly linkup  here are mine for September...

...nourish in my part of the world September is the month of transition from Summer to Autumn although on some days the weather would have us think otherwise.  We have had very cool days, mixed in with bright warm sunny ones.  Our food is following this transition as we are still eating salad, all still growing in the garden, but there are days we need a hot lunch and soup is what I serve. Using up some of the glut of courgettes and cucumbers from the garden I making soups with both, the courgette recipe can be found here.  I have also made a couple of bakes this month using ingredients from our veg bag which we have started to have delivered again.  It has been pleasing to make these up as I go along using ingredients that I always hope will complement each other, the proof is always in the eating......all gone at the end of the meal.

...prepare for me Autumn is about preserving, preparing my home and kitchen for the cooler months to come.  I have been busy with Rosehip Syrup, freezing fruit picked from the garden and foraging, Dill Pickles and making fruit leather.  I am going to write another preserving post this autumn so watch this space!

...reduce in April our washing machine died after a sterling service for fourteen years of use we kept various parts of it to reuse and sell on.  It had two large springs amongst its parts which we have my husband has put to great use this month.  We live in a windy area, we are at about 300m above sea level and surrounded by open fells, the wind blows off the hills straight into our garden.  We have a large fruit cage in our garden to protect our fruit bushes from birds, the cage itself is tied down to stop it taking off but in a high wind it often looks like it might.  We have experimented with various different methods for tethering it the ropes getting thicker and thicker as time goes on.  It is now tethered with climbing tape and the springs from the washing machine, we are now waiting for the high winds to arrive to put it to the test......

...green  I have not used bought shampoo or conditioner for nearly three years now,  I was forced to give them up due to the ingredients effecting my skin.  I have been using bicarbonate of soda and cider vinegar during that time varying the quantities to find what worked for me.  I get my hair cut about every six months and have to have a fair bit cut off each time as the ends are very dry.  I could of course blame the bicarb and vinegar but I knew it wasn't that.  I take the children swimming every week, I get in the pool with them and my hair gets wet in the pool absorbing all the pool chemicals which are really difficult to wash out.  Over the summer we use our village pool which uses very little in the way of chemicals and my hair is totally different as a result.  I decided I needed to do something about the destruction that the pool chemicals were having to my hair.  I found a few methods that you could use and have tried one of them at the end of this month.  All the advice suggested wetting your hair before getting in the pool which apparently inhibits the absorption of the chemicals into your hair and washing it before it dries, both of which I did.  The crucial bit tho' is that I took some Vitamin C powder, yes you did read that correctly, to use as a rinse after getting out of the pool.  I dissolved a teaspoon of powder in a pint of water and poured and rubbed this into my hair to get rid of the smell.  After one attempt it does seem to have worked, my hair feels as it did in the summer it remains to be seen as to whether it works in the long term, I do hope so.

I mentioned making my own toothpaste last month several of you asked about it.  I am using eggshells as I have a constant supply, I also thought I was going to need to make some more this month but I have it seems to go further than I would have expected. I guess you can't see into a tube of toothpaste to know exactly how much is left!

...grow despite the autumn encroaching my garden continues to produce food for us to eat.  We are still harvesting potatoes, courgettes, cucumber, salad leaves and herbs.  The french beans have pretty much finished and the broad beans probably have one meal left on them.  I harvested a good crop of garlic, this surprised me as it was sown into the wettest, soggiest soil back in January and honestly thought they would mostly rot.  I just need to get them dried now.  I also harvested my onions, they were the best crop ever, in that they all grew but most were the size of a golf ball or smaller.  I think perhaps I didn't water them enough.  I am going to pickle the smallest ones, I know that you are meant to use pickling onions for this but I don't fancy peeling and chopping a dozen onions each time I need some for a meal!

...create I have been knitting quite a bit this month as I had a week away which gave me lots of time. I have knitted up two pairs of slippers, a hat for my youngest, the shawl I started last month, and I am slowly working my way down the sleeves of my shalom.  I am now ready to cast on the pattern that I mentioned in 'discover' last month, it could be some time before that happens as it is way down the queue.  I cut out some pieces for some sewing up a month or so ago which have sat where they are for weeks, I have been working on our weekly rhythms this month but haven't worked out where sewing fits into that as yet.  I also have two other projects that I have bought material for that need time spending on them too, Christmas will soon be on us so I need to fit it all in somehow.

...discover earlier in the year I spent quite a bit of time finding out the dates of various festivals and celebrations from different cultures and religions as thought it would be interesting to try and include some of them into our learning.  This hasn't happened much this year as I have not been focused enough on them, but this autumn we have observed a few already.  The Autumn Equinox was at the end of September and it was interesting to read up and learn about this festival and how it has been celebrated in the past.  We have put our own stamp on it with music, dancing, and enjoying food, always a good combination.

...enhance despite needing to take a step back from this for a while I managed to fit in a weekend for a local guide group assessing a duke of edinburgh expedition for them.  It is always a pleasure and often gives me a few hours to myself something I don't get very often.

...enjoy we spent a week visiting my parents this month.  They live far enough away that it is not possible to visit for the day and a weekend feels so short.  We travelled on the train this time, the children are old enough for me to do this on my own now as they can carry some luggage and get on and off the trains unaided.  I still felt like a donkey with all the luggage I did need to carry up and down the stairs to get to our platforms.  The children thought it was a great adventure.  We travel a fair bit by train but not usually that far.  We had a lovely week away, it is always a good rest for me, the only holiday when I don't have to think about food, but I still help with the cooking of course!

Slow Living

It is always lovely to look back and reflect on what you have done over the previous weeks or months, taking stock, observing changes and celebrating achievements.  Even better if you can join together and see what others have been doing too in their part of the world, blogging is a wonderful way of making the world a smaller place.  Christine over a Slow Living Essentials started this wonderful reflection and has now passed the baton onto Linda at Greenhaven for the monthly linkup  here are mine for August...

...nourish I feel like I have spent a large amount of time cooking food this month.  We have been camping three times, which always involves a huge amount of preparation not just equipment but also food.  Two of the trips were with young people on scout camps and involved large quantities of cake baking................our own trip meant that I pre cooked every meal for four days of being away.  Spicy lentil pasties, veggie sausage rolls, mini pizzas, refried beans and lentil salad were just some of the food on our menu.

...prepare aside from the camping food I prepared, I have also been busy freezing fruit from the garden this month.  I have one blackcurrant and one whitecurrant bush that were both covered in fruit, I managed to pick over 10lbs of fruit from each!  We have been eating lots of food with blackcurrants in including muffins and smoothies.  I also made a small quantity of cordial which was delicious and I will definitely be making some more when I have some time.

...reduce my husband went through his wardrobe and got rid of a few items of clothing he no longer wears, most of them went to the charity shop but there were a few pairs of shorts that I am adapting to fit my eldest.  I sewed the sides up to make them a bit thinner in the leg, cut the elastic waist band off and folded a seam over and made a new case for elastic, I need to find a long enough piece of elastic and thread it in and they will be finished.  I hope they fit him next year as the warm weather is most definitely finished here now.

...green I had a go at making my own toothpaste this month.  I have been wanting to do this for a long time.  It is one of the few toiletries/cleaning products that I still buy.  I had not been able to find a recipe that I thought would work for me until I stumbled on this one which I thought sounded intriguing and would be fairly easy to make with ingredients I had, so would not involve me buying anything which I then would not use if I didn't like it.  So do I?  Well if I am honest it takes a bit of getting used to, it is nothing like toothpaste out of a tube.  It is really messy and definitely an acquired taste, my family won't use it but I do and am actually liking it now.  I have nearly finished my first batch and will be making up some more soon.

...grow this is the one month of the year when my garden really comes into its own.  My growing season is very short (nearly at an end now) so we always make the most of August, harvesting as much as we can especially veggies that will keep producing.  Usually we can manage a week maybe two of eating just veggies from the garden and not buying any but for the first time we have managed the whole month, I can't quite believe it especially as so many seeds failed to germinate.  

...create I have managed to finish a few projects this month that were started earlier this year.  I have been making a shawl for a friend which I have now have finished knitting but I need to block.  I completed a t-shirt which I have been knitting only to discover that it is way too big for me!  I have given it to my mum to try, I hope it fits her and she will wear it, otherwise I will be undoing it as I will never wear it.  It was fun to knit tho'.  I have also started on a few christmas presents a shawl for my daughter and some more slippers for friends.

...discover a few months ago I won two skeins of alpaca yarn in a giveaway, they are beautiful and I have been pondering since what to make with them.  I have searched Ravelry for a pattern but have not found what I want, so I have decided to create my own.  It will be some kind of shawl, scarf, wrap kind of thing and I have had three books out of the library which are full of knitting stitches so I can work out what I want to include.  I am now pondering whether to have cabling stitches or texture with interesting knitted/purl stitches.

...enhance I have helped out on two camps for my local explorer scout group this month.  The first was a international camp which we sent a small contingent to, although it was international it was hosted down the road from us so we did not have far to travel.  We met scouts from Spain, France, Belguim, Tanzania, Ghana, Ireland and from all over the UK.  It was great fun and my children thought it was wonderful.  The second was our annual summer camp, a mix of activities in the rain!  

...enjoy the highlight for me last month has to be the music festival we attended.  I love live music and a whole weekend of it is, for me, is close to perfection.  The weather was kind, the music fantastic and we all had a great time, what more could I ask for?

Slow Living

It is always lovely to look back and reflect on what you have done over the previous weeks or months, taking stock, observing changes and celebrating achievements.  Even better if you can join together and see what others have been doing too in their part of the world, blogging is a wonderful way of making the world a smaller place.  Christine over a Slow Living Essentials hosts a monthly link up of reflections here are mine for May....

...nourish this month has been all about eating outside whether at home or out and about.  If the weather is warm enough in the morning we have breakfast outside our back door, it just started to be by the end of the month.  We have picnics all year round, in the cooler months these tend to be eaten inside at museums etc.  Now we are enjoying them outside and it is fun to come up with ideas to ensure that we don't end up with sandwiches several days a week.  We have been eating pasta, rice or couscous salads, homemade pasties, veggie 'sausage' rolls, tarts and of course rolls and sandwiches!

...prepare as you never know when you might need a picnic lunch I have bulk cooked some pasties this month and put them in the freezer.  I have filled them with a spicy lentil mix and a spinach and feta mix.  They freeze fairly well although the spinach pasties are a little soggier on defrosting!

...reduce with the weather warming up it was time for me to sort out the children's clothes and work out if they needed any more.  I never actually put away their autumn/winter clothes as it has been known to be cold all year round in these parts.  My eldest had only one pair of shorts but several pairs of trousers with holes in the knees.  I have cut these as near as possible to where they are worn and sewed a hem, now he has several pairs of shorts!

...green I have posted before about trying to remember to drink enough water, I really struggle with it.  Life gets in the way of me remembering too.  I was talking to a friend about this and she recommended drinking 1.5 litres or 3 pints of water on waking up, then eat nothing for an hour.  During the day she was drinking a further one or two pints and never with a meal/food.  I have been trying this for the last month and boy does it work!  On the occasional day that I forgot I felt terrible, really dehydrated, groggy and tired.  The days I struggle with it are the ones when we have to be someone very early and I can't wait an hour before eating but it seems to be ok on the rare occasion I have done this.

...grow we are now heading towards our growing season it is very short, just a few months, so it feels like you have to devote much of your attention to it, to ensure any results.  May has been about caring for seedlings and a small amount of sowing.  I have always been tempted to plant my seedlings out in this month but it isn't really warm enough.  Night time temperatures are often just above freezing between 0 - 5°C, far too cold for tender seedlings.  I have kept them in the polytunnel for the whole month.  The only sowing outside has been potato chits and onion sets which have both survived the cooler temperatures.

...create it was my daughters birthday in May so I was busy making presents for her.  I made some  dolly clothes for a wee dolly I made her a couple of years ago.  I attempted to follow a pattern to make a dress which ended in disaster (it was completely the wrong size/shape) so I used a dress that I  knew fitted to make a pattern, and I wrote a tutorial so I could remember what I did for next time.  I also made a skirt.  She had a little party with a few friends and I made them all a wee bracelet to take home with yarn and buttons from my stash.

...discover I have not had much time for reading this month as I have been really busy making and creating.  My reading time is the hour or so before I go to sleep and this has been taken up with secret present sewing and knitting.  I have been dipping in and out of an interesting book on child rearing around the world.  This is not a book filled with expert advice but rather an interesting study of how cultures around the world approach child care.

...enhance in the last week of May our village outdoor pool opened for the season.  This is a wonderful resource to have so close to home, it is a ten minute walk from our house as opposed to a twenty minute drive to the nearest alternative.  We do a lot of open water swimming too but the season for this is really only August/Sept when the rivers and lakes have warmed up enough!  As we home educate it is easy for us to hide and not engage with the village community we live amongst.  It is great to spend a few months of the year fully immersed in it as we visit the pool four or five times a week.  It also means that our village is full of really good swimmers which is a vital skill for all to have.

...enjoy the highlight for me this month has been celebrating a wee gal's fifth birthday.  I cannot believe I have been the mother to two children for five years, the time seems to have flown.  I have treasured every year of her life and I am so blessed to be able to spend all that time at home with her. She requested a small party with a few friends, a few games, some delicious food and lots of play.  It was wonderful to watch and listen to all the children sat on a picnic blanket in our living room (it was too cold to be outside) chatting together and eating their picnic tea.

Slow Living.....

It is always lovely to look back and reflect on what you have done over the previous weeks or months, taking stock, observing changes and celebrating achievements.  Even better if you can join together and see what others have been doing too in their part of the world, blogging is a wonderful way of making the world a smaller place.  Christine over a Slow Living Essentials hosts a monthly link up of reflections here are mine for April....

...nourish as we enter fully into Spring in my part of the world it is a time of warming up and a green haze blooming.  It is a gradual awakening and this had also bought a change each week to our veg bag.  Slowly the root vegetables of the last months have been replaced with new veg which is so exciting!  We have been enjoying spring greens, asparagus, purple sprouting broccoli and salad leaves.  Each week when I get a list of what will be in my bag, I sit down with my recipe books and plan a menu, each week there is something new to cook with.  Much as I love the root vegetables of the autumn and winter I am always ready for the change that spring brings.

...prepare the greening of our hedgerows has meant that we have been out doing a wee spot of foraging.  We have been picking the beautifully pale hawthorn leaves for our salads, nettle for cups of tea and wild garlic to make into pesto using this recipe I have frozen most of what we made as it was a huge quantity.  I last made this two years ago and we are just finishing up that batch!

...reduce after fourteen years of continual use, including over four years of nappies, our washing machine died this month.  My husband opened the machine up to establish whether or not it could be repaired, sadly it was beyond that it was completely worn out.  Rather than send the whole machine to the tip, my husband strip it down completely making piles of bits, some for recycling, some for reusing, some which had to go to the tip.  The drum we are keeping to make into a fire pit.

...green out of necessity I make nearly all the toiletries and cleaning products we use in our house.  Although I was forced down this road I would not go back to buying them even if they were ok for my skin.  This month I made another batch of deodorant.  I can't find a record of making this last year but I know I did, two years ago I made some in May.  I think this batch probably lasts for a year as I know I don't make it that often!  The quantity I make fills two old deodorant sticks that I kept and keep refilling.

...grow apart from both my children having massive growth spurts lately our garden is also blooming too.  We have sown and chitted potatoes, the latter of which will need planting out in the next week or so.  We have also sown many seeds all of which are now wee seedlings sitting happily in their seed trays and pots on the staging in the polytunnel.  It is always interesting that seeds sown on the same day grow at completely different rates.  As well as the seeds I have also started some onion sets off in trays, we have such a short growing season where I live that this gives them the head start they need to grow to a decent size, otherwise I end up with a crop of onions the size of golf balls!

The seedlings are being kept insulated by some horticultural fleece as an over blanket and some leftover carpet underlay underneath them. We had some carpets laid a month or so ago and the carpet layers left us the off cuts. One piece is a perfect fit for our staging. Despite having a polytunnel the temperatures in there still drop really low most nights this extra insulation is an attempt to keep the temperature slightly more constant and it seems to work as most seeds do germinate.

...create I have been doing huge amounts of sewing this month for the many birthdays of children of friends and my family.   I have rustled up an owl storysack, a wee gnome, two rainbow balls, a play cape and a couple of pairs of slouchy/pyjama type trousers.  I created a Mother Earth for our seasonal table.  My knitting needles have been a little quieter this month, I have finished the body of a cardigan for myself and now need to work on the sleeves, I have blocked and sewn up a cardigan for my eldest which now needs a hood adding and I have cast on a new project and knitted a few rows.

...discover with all the sewing I have been doing I have reading a lot about different techniques and words used in the world of sewing.  I am totally self taught and rarely use patterns but I am making use of one to make something for my youngest.  The pattern directions are a bit scant for me so I have been looking lots up to try and make sense of what I need to do!

...enhance I have been doing lots of different things with my local Explorer Scout unit this month including a trip to the theatre with some of them, it has been a very long time since I visited a theatre.  We are entering a busy period for our unit so I have lots of preparation to do for the coming months.

...enjoy the warmer weather has meant that we have dusted off, literally it is kept in the garage and was covered in sawdust, our canoe and taken it out on several trips.  I love going out canoeing on day trips and overnight or longer journeys.  The weather was beautiful on both occasions although the wind made sailing, we have a small sail for our canoe, rather hairy at the end of one of the days.

Moments...

It is the beginning of the month so, once again, I have a slightly different Moments post.  This is a reflection on the month using the goals suggested over on Slow Living Essentials, so here are mine for February and head on over to see what others have been up to.

...nourish we are moving towards warmer longer days in my part of the world.  Despite the fact that it hasn't been that cold, it feels like we have been through a very long winter, grey and wet for weeks on end.  We are now looking forward to the change in the vegetables that the change in the weather will bring, much as we love our root veg you can have too much of a good thing.  Right now we are enjoying the odd salad, thrown together with whatever ingredients we have in our weekly veg bag and in the garden.  This has included a new recipe for us, remoulade, a crunchy and delicious salad made with carrot and celeriac, a great way to use up root veg on a warmer day.  I would usually make stew or soup with celeriac which is not what we want to eat right now!  We had our remoulade with broccoli fritters.

...prepare now that our days are getting warmer (think this is going to be a theme.......) we are having more time out and about which means more picnics.  So that I can throw one together at a moments notice I make sure I always have homemade rolls and bread in the freezer.  I have been making these up during this month and now have a good store ready for those lazy days outside.

...reduce my eldest does not own many pairs of trousers/pants, depending on where you live, and the ones he does own often have holes in the knees.  I have been busy patching a few pairs this month using material from a pair he has grown out of ( and which had a hole in both knees!).  We have also acquired a few old pallets which we have been busy chopping up for kindling ready for next winter, you can never have too much kindling!

...green a couple of years ago I spend much of the year suffering from the symptoms of what I now know is urticaria (hives) and eczema on my hands.  It took me ages to work out what it actually was and what could be triggering it.  There are several triggers which I have now removed some food and some external.  The external triggers meant that overnight I could not use a single item of household cleaning or toiletry products in the house.  They were all carefully chosen to be low impact on the environment and humans but still they contained an ingredient my body found intolerable, Limonene, an essential oil added to all of the products we were using.  So I had to, very quickly, come up with my own.  Two years on we are still using all those 'products' which we make ourselves, only buying toothpaste and washing up liquid neither of which we have been able to satisfactorily make ourselves.  We had several bottles of our original products in the house each containing a small amount which we have slowly been using up, either my husband using them, or me with rubber gloves when my hands are good.  What we have noticed is the smell.  Even though the smell is more natural than most products, they smell really strong to us, my children even commenting 'What is that funny smell' when I was washing the kitchen floor with some of these 'leftovers' this month!

...grow there is not a huge amount growing in my garden as yet, despite the warmer weather during the day we had heavy frosts overnight most nights last month.  I usually wait until April to sow my seeds otherwise the seedlings die of the cold, even in the polytunnel!  I have chitted potatoes, pruned and tidied the garden this month in readiness for sowing.  We are still harvesting last years crops, we have had cabbages, kale and purple sprouting broccoli and in the polytunnel some self seeded, hardy salad leaves, red mustard, corn salad and greens in snow.

...create I have been doing a lot of sewing this month.  A daisy headband for a friend's daughter recovering from major surgery, a purple bag and a fabric bucket there is a tutorial in the post if you wish to make one for yourself. I have also been knitting.  A cardigan which I frogged more stitches than I knitted and a fulled/fellted bowl depending on your take on such things.

...discover I read a wonderful book this month Kith by Jay Griffiths which was an affirmation to me that some of the decisions we have made for our children have been good ones, even though they ver far from the mainstream.  She also talks in this book about having a strong desire, sometimes from a young age, to follow a particular path in life.  This might be the career that you choose or a skill that you can hone and excel at.  Again I feel that she is right and I have been pondering what this has meant to me and the way I have lived my life thus far.  This book, unlike so many on children and parenting, is not lecturing in its tone.  It is an essay, the authors opinion which you can take or leave depending on your own opinion.  It is a book I would recommend all parents to read.

...enhance a couple of months ago I mentioned a dilemma I was pondering over the Scouts in my area.  I have now decided to concentrate on my local Explorer pack and have been much more involved with them since then.  I really enjoy all my time I spend in the company of these wonderful teenagers, it troubles me that they get such a bad press.  Perhaps if those that say such things were to spend more time around teenagers they wouldn't be so negative.  In any section of society there is always those who break the law or who are difficult to get along with but the whole group  are not tarred with that brush.  Teenagers are at a bridge in their lives a transition from childhood to adulthood they need supporting not persecuting.

...enjoy this has to be the warmer, drier days which have enabled us to have some wonderful days out, walking, cycling and bird watching.  Our rhythm has changed with the transition in the season.

*************

....and continuing from my usual moments posts....

...reading Awakening by William Horwood, All About the Bullerby Children by Astrid Lindgren, and these picture books* you can read a short review of them here. 93. The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning, 94. Rats and Mice by Honor Head, 95. The Princess and the Pea by Lauren Child, 96. No Place Like Home by Jonathan Emmett, 97. The Pirates Next Door  by Jonny Duddle, 98. Rita and Whatsit go on a Picnic by 

Jean-Philippe Arrou-Vignod, 99. The Bear in the Cave by Michael Rosen, 100. Boom, Baby, Boom Boom by Margaret Mahy, 101. The Knight, the Princess and the Dragon by Helen Craig, 102. The Talkative Tortoise by Andrew Fusek Peters, 103. This Old Man by Pam Adams, 104. What the Ladybird Heard by Julia Donaldson

*Joining in with 300 Picture Book Challenge