We just finished reading The Swiss Family Robinson.  What a delightful story...especially for my boys!  We finished it in less than three days!  They were thrilled.  I am so pleased when I see my children get excited over great literature.  When they relate to the characters, they will "play" the story lines out themselves.  I find it can be more difficult to engage my sons in a story because they must sit still and listen and they would rather be "doing something".  We have read some fantastic books for boys this year, though.  When the story moves quickly and contains action and a strong plot, I find that boys can sit much longer.  This was the case with Swiss Family Robinson. 

Now, we are reading The Stories of the Pilgrims.  We read this every year in November.  The children look foward to it...the boys and the girls.  In fact, Nicholas was the one who reminded me that we had better get started on it! 

Some other books we have been enjoying with the youngest ones this past month have been all of the Francis books by Russel Hoban.  Gabriella enjoys them tremendously!  Of course, our very favorite stories come from The Beatrix Potter Collection...our copy is falling apart and is now missing the hard cover!   We have also been reading through the poems in "A Child's Garden Of Verses". 

I just had to share this wonderful recipe with you!  If you
are like me, nothing beats a nice, hot cup of tea and a
good book when the weather begins to chill.  I love to curl
up in my chair after I put the children to bed with a warm
blanket and a steaming mug.  It is so simple to make and
has no "artificial flavors" in it to make you wonder just
what it is you are drinking.
 
Mocha Chai
your favorite black tea
boiling water
real milk or cream
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
2 teaspoons cocoa powder
real whipped cream
 
Fill your favorite mug half way with boiling water and one
black tea bag.  Steep this for 5 minutes and remove the
bag.  Add the spices and the cocoa and stir well.  Add very
warm milk to fill the mug to the top and follow up with a
small dollup of real whipped cream. Dust this with a bit
more cocoa powder, if you desire.  Drink immediately!
Enjoy!
 

**My e-book, "The Kichen Apothecary" is available.  Go to www.fromfieldsandgardens.com for more info!

One of the nice things about having a full quiver of children is that I get to read some of the all-time great books again and again.  My oldest daughter, Savannah, is now ten.  We began reading all of the Little House books together when she was around five years old.  Now, my youngest daughter, Gabriella, is ready for the adventure to begin.  A few nights ago, she cuddled up next to me for the begining of Little House in the Big Woods. 

You know, it doesn't matter how many times I read Laura Ingalls Wilder's books.   They are never dull.  I get just as much satisfaction from reading them now to Gabi as I did to Savannah.  I can't leave my boys out...they have enjoyed the stories just as much as the girls.  In fact, Nicholas (7) climbed right up next to Gabi and listened again to the story of Grandpa and the panther.  These books were written for boys and girls to enjoy.  Farmer Boy is a favorite of my boys!

Classic literature can be enjoyed over and over again.  It is books like Anne of Green Gables, Hiedi, Little Women, The Collection of Beatrix Potter, A.A Milnes, Tasha Tudor, Thornton Burgess...these are the books and authors that should make up a home library.  The books are never tired of.  So much modern literature, especially what is being written for children, is such a disappointment to me.  Thankfully, I can still share the wonderful old favorites with my children. 

We are really enjoying the Thornton Burgess books this year!  So far we have read Bowser the Hound, Old Mother West Wind, and The Tales of Danny Meadow Mouse.  He does such a fabulous job of weaving facts about the animals natural habitat and such throughout the stories.  You could do an entire unit study easily.  The character lessons are great, too!

We just love nature study!  We get quite a bit of it here.  Just a few weeks ago the children watched as I helped deliver the second goat kid from a birth of triplets!  (for the whole story, visit www.homesteadblogger.com/fromfieldsandgardens)  We have reared baby chicks and nursed wounded animals.  The greatest adventure is our veggie garden.  Every family needs to plant a garden!  Our sunflower patch is currently home to several lovely song birds.  Gabi has named some of them.  One chirpy yellow finch she calls "Gum Ball".

For more information of Thornton Burgess and his books, visit www.thorntonburgess.org

God's Creation testifies of Him!  Who could think it all just happened by chance?

We celebrate the bibilical feasts in our family and what fun we have doing it!  We started doing this a few years ago and each year gets more exciting.  We even have extended family who celebrate them and our church has started to celebrate the feasts, too!  It is a great time.

Tomorrow evening, the 12th, as the sun sets, the Feast of Trumpets will begin.  We do not celebrate Rosh Hoshanah the way the Jewish people do.  The bible says that the new year actually begins in the spring, not the fall.  Rather, we celebrate literally the blowing of the trumpets.  (It makes me wonder how the tradition of the new year got started... it makes much more sense that the new year would begin at the begining of the planting and harvesting cycle.  My daughter pointed that fact out to us today while we were doing our calender study.  God is so much smarter than we are and we always have to botch up His plan with our own!  The Jews are starting a new year in the fall and we start ours in the middle of winter, for heavens sake!  Springtime is the obvious choice.  I'll have to side with God on that one.)   

The Feasts make a great unit study.  The study of a shofar is fascinating, to be sure.  The noise that they make when they are blown is so loud!  It brings to life the stories of Gideon's army and the walls of Jericho.  It is also fitting to read 2 Thessalonians 4:16-18.  Remember, this feast has yet to be fulfilled!  How much more exciting does it get?

Our church will gather tomorrow for a fabulous dinner and praise and worship music to follow.  As the sun sets, several men from our fellowship will actually blow shofars!  My husband has to work and will miss the fun, but my sons will take our shofar and take turns blowing it.  It is nearly bigger than they are, but they can do a good job of blasting it!

If you are interested in learning more about these awesome holidays, check out A Family Guide to Biblical Holidays, Celebrating the Biblical Feasts, or The Seven Feasts of Israel.  They are all good books and will give you tons of ideas.  They are available through www.rainbowresource.com.

Don't miss out on the blessing.  The feasts are stories about Jesus and they are not just for Israel, just like salvation is not just for Israel.  We have been adopted in to the family and our Father is an amazing story teller!

Shalom!

School has started again, and I had forgotten about how important it is to have some sort of schedule going where meals are concerned.  We are just such free-spirits all summer long, eating from the garden, brunch instead of lunch, late suppers...  One of my issues this week has been getting breakfast and lunch on the table quickly and simply.  Time is of the essence. 

For breakfast, we like to do porridge.  If you have a slow cooker, you can actually put your grains in the night before and they will be cooked and creamy for breakfast.  Top the creamy porridge with a syrup made with molasses, honey, cinnamon, and vanilla.  Pour some kefir or fresh milk over all of this and you have a mighty healthy and filling breakfast!   Tasty, too!

Smoothies and sandwiches work great for lunch.  I like to make several sandwiches and cut them up into squares.  I serve them on one large platter.  Each child gets a napkin to eat off of and this saves on dirty dishes and clean up.  Smoothies can be made out of so many different fruits and veggies!  Add apples and carrots to kefir or bananas and blueberries with yoghurt and pineapple juice.   Smoothies can be made with just about anything your heart desires! 

Visit www.fromfieldsandgardens.com for more recipes!

**We finished Bowser the Hound, and we loved it.  You know your children are into a book when your son jumps in the air at the end and pumps his fist in the air!  We have a few more Thornton Burgess books to read this year, but next we are going to do Rascal, by Sterling North.  We love the old movie done by Disney and we can't wait to read the book.  My children know that a book is always better than the movie, so since we already love the movie so much, we figure the book will be great!  

If your family enjoys watching old, wholesome movies once in a while, let me suggest you try to find a copy of Rascal.  It is very sweet.

One of my favorite tasks of the new school year is choosing which books to read.  Reading is the most important part of our curriculum.  In fact, it is the core of our learning.  My almost 10 year old daughter has already read over 300 books!  It is a bit hard for me to decide on the books we will read together first.  I also assign each child reading assignments to do on their own.

Our first read-a-loud book this year is Bowser the Hound by Thornton Burgess.  Next, we will read Rascal by Sterling North.  Over the summer, we read The Rats of Nimh.  That was very interesting and made for some great conversation, given the sci-fi reality of the times we are living in. It is a fact that the U.K. is already engineering human-animal hybrids and a debate is on within the Catholic Church as to whether or not these "chimeras" should be allowed to have life.  What?!  But, yes it is true.  So, maybe The Rats of Nimh is not as far fetched as it seems.

We have also learned during our first week in school, just how pagan our calender is.  The children and I are going to see if we can train ourselves to refer to the days of the week the way God does...1st day, 2nd day, 3rd day...The funny thing is that I did not intend for us to study this.  It was not written in my planner to study the pagan calender.  It came about through our reading, so we went further with it.  Savannah was assigned to read an old book called, 'Keeping Time, by Walter Buehr.  All it took was for her to share with the rest of us what she was reading and the next thing you know, we are off on a learning adventure.  What is interesting is that our prayer for this year was that God would teach us what He wants us to know and that our school year would be directed by Him. 

Books are so fantastic and if you have access to a public library, you have a lifetime of learning at your fingertips.  Who needs expensive curriculum?  We have also been blessed by my husband's parents who frequent auctions and always buy us the books!  We have a wonderful start on building our home library! 

If you would like to join our informal "book club", feel free to join us.  I will periodically list the books we are reading.  If you happen to read the same book, leave some comments!

I found a gem of a book at the library last week... it is titled The Book of Stillmeadow, by Gladys Taber.  It is an old book.  Copyright, 1948.  From what I have been able to find out, Gladys Taber wrote for The Ladie's Home Journal.  The Book of Stillmeadow is a sort of a journal about her life in the country.  She muses about cooking on her woodstove, gardening, painting lawn furniture...it is simply an easy, peaceful read.  I am enjoying it very much.  It is the perfect book for lazy summer days. 

I plan to read a few of her other books, although they are out of print, so I will try to locate them through inter-library loan.  She wrote a book about flower arranging and a cookbook, that I know of for sure.  I just love it when I come across an old, forgotten author or an old, forgotten book.  What a treasure!

With a little imagination and a few simple ingredients, you can be on your way to making your own natural laundry soaps and cleaning agents.  With so many dangerous chemicals listed as ingredients in many popular "heavy duty" cleaners that we see so much of these days, you have to be wondering if the use of these products is having a negative effect on your health.  Many of these chemicals have been shown to increase cancer risk and cause a host of other health related problems such as infertility.  So, why are we using them?

For centuries, women were cleaning their homes with a few simple ingredients.  It took a little bit of elbow grease, too.  They didn't have a product that could just be sprayed on and left to "eat away" at the dirt and grease on its own.  But, I can guarantee you that while they may have had to scrub a little harder, the results were just as good and the family was protected from the very harmful chemicals known to exist in our modern cleaners.

When you are using safe cleaning agents, it is much easier to include even the youngest children in household chores.  A two or three year old can easily wash windows with a little spray bottle filled with vinegar and water!  I would never give a young child a bottle of Windex!  After learning more about the dangers of most of the common cleaners, I would hesitate to even allow my older children to handle them!  Thankfully, you can create your own cleaning agents safely, and rather cheaply, in the comfort of your own kitchen!

Let us start with laundry detergent...

You will need a good, strong lye soap base to make a decent laundry detergent.  You will also need borax and washing soda (different from baking soda, but baking soda will do in a pinch).  Mix one part lye soap crumbles to one half part borax and one half part washing soda.  You may also want to add a few drops of tea tree oil or peppermint essential oil for a nice clean scent.  You can put this mixture through the blender to make a fine crumbled powder.  To wash one large load of laundry, you should dissolve half a cup of your mixture into two cups of hot water.  When soap has dissolved, pour into your wash.

For a nice, soft finished washing, add a cup of white vinegar to your rinse cycle.  You should really always add some vinegar to the rinse if your using lye soap, in my opinion.

If you want the whitest whites, always hang them out to dry on the line and let the sunshine do its work!

For windows and glass...

Vinegar is an excellent cleaner and it works great on glass.  Mix 1/3 cup vinegar with 2 pints of rain water.  Pour this into a spray bottle.  The old tip about using crumpled up newspaper to wash your windows really works.  It doesn't leave any streaks!

For tubs and sinks...

To clean tubs and sinks, you will need baking soda, borax and vinegar.  Sprinkle the baking soda and borax into the tub or sink and spray it down good with vinegar (always keep some in a spray bottle for cleaning purposes).  It will fizz up good.  Now scrub with a scouring pad and rinse with hot water.

Floors...

To mop floors, you only really need a bucket or pail of the hottest water with a cup or two of vinegar added.  If the floors are really dirty, add a half cup of borax or a bit of lye soap.

For counter tops and general cleaning...

Always keep a spray bottle filled with white vinegar diluted with rain water and a few drops of either peppermint or lavender essential oil and a few drops of tea tree oil.