Building Homes

Lately as we venture into the forest by our home Reece has been building homes for his friends. These friends change from day to day. One day it is a home for the frogs, the next day a home for the forest fairies and then another day a home for Clara. He collects little bits of nature and gets busy creating.

Watching him create, seeing how his mind is working and witnessing the pure joy he gets from this experience is amazing. One morning Justin and I sat back and watched for about 45 minutes while Reece went about creating the perfect home for his friends. We whispered quietly from a distance so we would disturb him. He asked us to help find a few things, so we jumped up happy to share in his experience. Then we went back to our spot and watched.

It was magical.

The next morning I ran these lovely trails and had to take a little stop by the "frog home". It had been disturbed, how exciting! I headed home and suggested it might be a good time to take Shelby for a walk. Reece agreed and asked if we could stop by the "frog home" to see if it had been used. I answered with a very excited "of course we can!"

You can imagine his pure delight upon noticing his little "frog home" had been slept in.

This delight lead him to more creating, another home had to be built, but not too close to this one. So we hiked a little bit more until he found the perfect spot and he got busy building another home.

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Linking up with Heather at Naturally Crafted Mama for {Into Nature}

Happy Weekending

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?

No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

~W. H. Davies~

Wishing you a weekend full of time to stand and stare.

{This Moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see. Inspired by Soulemama.

Garden Notes

The gardens are doing well thanks to some much needed rain last week. Until then it was a little iffy.  The need for water was high, not just for our vegetable gardens but for our well established perennial beds too. I never have to water the perennial beds. They usually do just fine by themselves. They are well established, have great root systems and we usually get just enough rain that I don’t have to worry about watering them. Not this year. Things, the perennials and the vegetables, were beginning to shrivel up. The rain barrels were empty and using the well to water plants is just not the best case scenario.  We do have a very deep well, but you just never know.

So when it rained last week, not just once, but three times, you can bet we were doing a little happy rain dance here. Everything perked back up, well almost everything, I don’t think the zucchini plants are coming back...I am holding out hope, but I think they are done. The butternut squash seemed to fair a little better, but not much. Other than those two, everything else is doing just great and we are enjoying some pretty amazing food right from the backyard.

This week we are:

• Going out to the garden to harvest food for every meal
• Enjoying big delicious salads
• Eating a ton of kale chips
• Watching a watermelon grow a little bigger every day
• Admiring the beautiful blooms on the eggplants
• Trying to keep up with the tomatoes, every day there are more ready to be picked
• Enjoying the lovely heirlooms we decided to plant this year...they are so good
• Getting ready to do some canning
• Enjoying the sunflowers
• Cutting fresh flowers to fill the vase in the kitchen
• Sharing some of our bounty

How is your garden growing?

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Linking up with Taryn from Mama Gone Green for August Garden Party

Yarn Along

Another baby will be wearing a Milo this fall. Yup, that means I cast another one off this weekend. Have I mentioned how much I love these little Milos.

I stopped in at the yarn shop yesterday to pick up some yarn for Milo number five, hoping to cast it on later tonight or tomorrow. And I have decided there will be a sixth Milo, after knitting them up, I think my little man needs one too. It will be a gift under the Christmas tree for him.

On the reading front, the doula reading has been taking up most of my time, but I have read a few chapters of The Small Scale Poultry Flock, which I started last week. I am also reading Christopherus Homeschool Resources – Kindergarten with Your Three to Six Year Old. So far I like it, no big lesson plans, just some simple ideas for solidifying the rhythms in the home and offering suggestions for what a Waldorf kindergarten might look like at home.

What are you knitting and reading this week?

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Linking up with Nicole at Frontier Dreams for Keep Calm Craft On

Linking up with Ginny at Small Things for Yarn Along.

Change Is Good

For the last month or two, maybe a little longer, I have been feeling a little “off”. I have not been able to put my finger on why, and no amount of time in nature, with my little man or alone, journaling or meditating has brought any relief to this feeling.

Last week out of nowhere I got the sudden urge to simplify. I like to think we lead a pretty simple life. We don’t have a lot of “stuff”.  And I am not one to let things pile up. So this urge was kinda strange. But I went with it. I made a list, if you didn’t know this about me, I am a list maker. I listed what I felt needed to be simplified in our home and got started. I will slowly work on this throughout the month on rainy days and moments of free time.

You may be wondering what this has to do with change. Well I had an appointment with my therapist on Friday. Annette is an amazing healer with a range of modalities to work with including massage, acupuncture, osteopathy, cranial-sacral and energy work. I should say I have not seen Annette in four years. The last time I saw her for a treatment was when I was pregnant with Reece and was seeing her for some acupuncture.  Our paths did cross after Reece was born when she did some osteopathic work and cranial-sacral with Reece in the months following his birth.

I happened to run into her a few weeks ago and mentioned I needed to come in and see her. I really do believe there are no coincidences, everything happens for a reason. So I booked an appointment with Annette. During our conversation before she began our session she asked why I was there. I mentioned the fact that I have felt “off balance” for a while and just can’t seem to shake it. She asked a few more questions and I mentioned my sudden urge to clean out our home and simplify it more than it already is. Her response: “you are getting ready for something. You are clearing out the old to make room for the new.”  Hmmmm...she could be on to something I thought. So we explored that a little more, but couldn’t really come up with what this change might be. We tried to connect it to my doula training, my nutrition business, even changes happening within our family, but nothing really connected.

So, I hopped onto her table and she began to take a look at what might be going on physically. It turns out I was completely out of alignment. My whole right side from my ankle through my pelvis to my neck was out of alignment. No wonder I had been feeling a little off.

I relaxed in Annette’s healing hands for an hour. It was amazing and although I still have the urge to purge and am still feeling a little unsettled, I do feel a little more balanced.  And now I am sitting back and waiting, open to the possibilities the Universe has in store for me.

Change is good.

“All great changes are preceded by chaos.” 

~Deepak Chopra~

Connection

There is something that pulls me to nature. 

I feel it on days when time has gotten away from me, 

a tug, a pull, a sensation that tells me I have not connected with Mother Earth. 

I am often a little off on those days...my soul feels off balance. 

When I head into nature, when I make the time to connect, I feel a sense of peace. 

The moment I step into the woods, 

sit by the water 

or run on the trails 

I am over come with a feeling...a feeling I can't quite describe, but it is amazing.

It is also the reason I make sure I take Reece into nature on a regular basis. 

It is not only me that changes with that first step onto the trail, Reece does too. 

I can feel it and I am pretty sure he can feel it too. 

There is a sense of calm that washes over both of us. 

No words are spoken those first few minutes on the trail, we just take it all in. 

We watch.

We listen.

We breath.

We feel.

And then we explore. 

We usually find a nice spot for lunch along the trails,

we eat, we talk, we enjoy each others company.

I love these moments, just Reece and I, 

connecting with each other and Mother Nature. 

I know he finds the same sense of peace and magic I find 

and for that I am so very grateful.

"The human spirit needs places 

where nature has not been rearranged 

by the hand of man."

~Author Unknown~

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Linking up with Heather at Naturally Crafted Mama for {Into Nature}

Linking up with Small Town Simplicity for Mindful Mothering Monday's