09.26.2011
We found an organic farm not too far away from us that had great prices on produce! Much excitement abounded! We canned some whole tomatoes for soups and stews, as we're trying to avoid commercially canned items...and we canned some salsa, because you just can't beat the homemade deliciousness of salsa. We eat beans and rice once or more a week, and add homemade salsa on top...and call that a complete meal! YUM!
Someday I hope to have a big, beautiful garden where we will grow all of this lovely produce ourselves...
Here we have a few stray moments preserved by photos from the summer, which in and of themselves are not important enough to necessitate their own post, but still significant enough for me to feel like recording them.
7/1:
We picked all of these strawberries {and more} from the backyard of our old house! It was the first year that we got a big enough harvest of fruit to make jam with. We didn't have to pay to go pick someone else's strawberries! That is the goal in our gardening...to grow enough produce every season to can for our food storage. Too bad now that our old house is FINALLY producing enough strawberries, raspberries, peaches and apples to can {after four years of working on the garden there} we had to move! I feel certain that there is a bigger and better garden in our future though!
7/26:
We enjoy the view from our new house. It's up, up above the river, and even though we're not THAT close...we can see boats from our front windows and trains passing by on the tracks right next to the river.
on this day, we spotted a tug boat pushing a barge!
20x zoom!
7/29:
Brothy {bruvie} time:
Joshua and Toby and Ollie...they all love being brothies {except when they're ANNOYING each other}. On this day, I enjoyed capturing the way that Joshua loves Oliver {and Oliver, Joshua}.
7/30: Ollie eating:
I wanted to remember how much Oliver LOVEs to eat solid foods. My other kids would not have much to do with food until after they were 1, but Ollie has enjoyed them from 6 months. Avocado, bread, yogurt, scrambled eggs, beans and brown rice, cheese, "cookies", vegetable juice, meats, and basically anything we are eating that can be gummed or mashed enough for him to swallow.
Oooo...I could just eat HIM up! He's so cute.
8/6:
Andaluz Potluck, raspberry jam:
The Andaluz Waterbirth Center is the midwife group that I have used for Elsa and Ollie. They have two birth centers, but also attend home births. Twice a year they have a potluck dinner for all the midwives and families who have been their clients. In the winter they reserve the whole children's museum for the event, and in the summer it is held at Hoyt Aboretum in the amazing, beautiful Forest Park in Portland. I love going in the summer. There is a live band, face painting, little hikes, snow cones, grilled chicken and Northwest grilled cedar plank salmon...along with all the delicious potluck food that everyone brings.
DIG THAT SCENE!
I love seeing all the cute babies and kids from year to year growing older, interacting with lots of other crunchy Portland families...babywearing, breastfeeding, cloth diapering, natural childbirthing, etc. families.
Toby and his friend Carter both wanted dragons painted on their faces! COOL!
Kaden and Toby (yes, our friends the Mansius family are also an Andaluz family)
Making raspberry jam with the berries from our old house, while cute baby watches from his high chair:
So after consulting with many good people...especially the very helpful few who have been through loosing a baby, I came to the conclusion that I needed some scheduled projects to help ease me through this time of waiting. Thank you, you helpful people for all of your suggestions (you all know who you are).
We've got:
CANNING
I LOVE pears...sweet juicy pears
Tara and I did pears today and peaches yesterday
I can't take credit for the Himalayan Blackberry jam. Brent made that! Go Brent! He spent the whole summer picking wild blackberries, stockpiling them in the freezer, and then used some of them to make jam. Canning is such a lovely hobby. So yummy and pretty.
Next week I'm going to use the tomatoes from my garden to make and can salsa.
PIANO
I found the music on the internet for "Bella's Lullaby" from Twilight the movie. For some reason, I really wanted to listed to this song while I was in labor. It turns out that this music has become "Elsa's Lullaby." This song was written to portray a "tormented love," the kind of love that you want so badly but can't have. Practicing this song has been very satisfying and therapeutic.
READING
I've been reading lots of books about grieving and loosing a baby. I've been reading lots of blogs of other baby-lost mamas. That has been very helpful. But I've been waiting for the sequel of "Hunger Games" all year, so I decided to pick up "Catching Fire." Wow. This really distracted me. It also had me deluding reality a little...thinking that the evil capitol somehow was involved in the death of my baby. I left reality for a few days and it was fun, but it was a good thing to be finished since the intense story was bringing back anxiety and headaches that I had in the few weeks after Elsa's death.
SEWING
OK...so I've had this sewing pattern for about...14 years (that would explain the lovely '90's color palette). I decided that I'm finally going to make it. I am excited to shop for some really fun, funky fabrics that match the colors in my house. I am glad that I didn't attempt making it 14 years ago with those colors! I also need to get started on Halloween costumes for the boys...I'm thinking a Harry Potter theme this year...we'll see.
DON'T FORGET
Lots of lovely dinners and chats and time with friends and family. So fun! Thank you for being there for me. It has been so helpful.
Mmmm...U pick berries at Albeke Farm.
The Yummiest berries EVER!
making strawberry jam!
This kid here is the BIGGEST strawberry fan in the house! He was by my side every moment...taking lots of samples.
Brent was recently called as the EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS specialist in our ward. He is in charge of helping the ward members to be prepared in case of a disaster. This has been great motivation to work on our food storage and other emergency essentials. It is so NICE to have a house where we have room for food storage! There are several potentials for natural disasters here in the Portland area: tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption, flooding due to heavy rainfall or due to global warming raising the sea level. (WE are pretty safe up on top of our bluff at about 200 ft). But our Stake Presidency (presides over the churches/wards in our city and a few neighboring cities) has specifically instructed us to prepare for a Flu Pandemic and a corresponding 3 month Quarantine. So we are readying food, supplies, personal protective devices, sanitation, etc. in case we are stuck in our house for 3 months. Oh! And here is a great link to some Pandemic preparedness information that Brent found:
BYU-Idaho Pandemic Training. "If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear..."
That brings me to the next point. CANNING! My current calling in church is the Enrichment Leader and one of the special interest groups that I have tried to organize is a canning group. We have planned and consulted and done canning demonstrations to take advantage of all the wonderful and fresh produce that we have in the Northwest (many farms even within 15 minutes!). My friend
Tara was awesome enough to invite me to can with her. We planned it while our kids were at school and we did it together to pass the time. I am so HAPPY that Tara taught me so much about canning and I am ELATED about this:
This is my half of the canning that Tara and I did this year. We did Pears, tomatoes, salsa, pickles and applesauce. We have officially re-formed "the cult of domesticity" here :-). (A club that my friends Emily, Maria and I had in high school in which one had to bake, sew and do various other domestic activities in order to join.)
