Holiday season and a Blessed Yule

This year, our winter holiday celebrations were quiet, subdued and simple. We had hoped to spend Thanksgiving in Michigan, as it has been two years since we have visited our friends and family there. However, things did not work out and we spent it at home. We enjoyed a semi-traditional mostly homegrown feast.

Mashed potatoes, glazed sweet potatoes, squash, roasted vegetables, garlicy greens, fresh spinach and mixed green salad all organic and grown at home. (the turnips were a gift from a neighbor)


As a vegetarian family, we obviously don't eat turkey. Instead of purchasing a Tofurky this year, i made my own version. This tasty meal was created with tofu, wheat gluten, vegetable broth and seasonings. It's stuffed with wild rice and glazed with orange juice and tamari. i loosely used this recipe from Vegan Dad i always cut the recipe in half, leave out the smoke flavor and add way more seasoning than suggested. It's really good, and makes great leftovers. Sage enjoyed the 'Giving Thanks' part so much, that at almost every meal now...she asks to do the 'thank you's'. Such a sweetie.

Sadly, our 10 year family dog, Sampson, was killed on Thanksgiving day and that sort of set the mood for the rest of the holiday season. We went through all the motions, but something was definitely missing. We made gingerbread, decorated cookies, dug and decorated our usual holiday tree. We had been hoping to spend part of the holidays in Florida with family, but again were unable to make the trip. We were snowed in, and spent a quiet holiday with just the four of us.

Twas the night before Yule, when all through house...not a creature was stirring, not even a...

....goat.

This was my Yule surprise. His name is Casper and he's 6 months old. We all adore him.

Sage was thrilled to find these hello kitty socks in her stockings.

She immediately fell in love with this beautiful Melissa and Doug dollhouse. This amazing gift from 'Santa' was made possible by Gummy Lump toys. i came across a link for a contest they were having, and entered...not really thinking about it again.
i never in a million years thought i would win. i was completely floored when i read the email saying i had won. This was such an amazing blessing, as with so many people, money was especially tight this year.

The doll house came fully furnished and to add to my amazing luck, i came across this set of wooden dolls, still in the box at the thrift store for $1 . It is so much fun watching Sage set up the house and see how she has the dolls interact with each other.

Both kids were also very blessed with handmade gifts and toys. You can see more about them on my craft blog. The end of the year, the holidays, it always comes too quickly for me. i never have all the gifts finished, never get all the cards mailed out on time. Regardless, this year was nice. For the simplicity, and for the surprises. Although the season started off rough, it ended nicely and once again we were able to feel the magic.

Winter has arrived...

Winter came down to our home one night
Quietly pirouetting in on silvery-toed slippers of snow,
And we, we were children once again.
~Bill Morgan, Jr.

Grayson Highlands

This weekend we decided to check out the Grayson Highlands State park. Besides it's scenic views and great hiking trails, it is also known for the wild ponies that freely roam the confines of the park. It is only about 70 miles from us, and i'm not sure why we haven't hiked here before. We are very accustomed to traveling an hour or so to go just about anywhere.
Oddly enough, we had just gotten out of our car when i ran into a girl i know, who had just finished hiking and was on her way home. She clued us in to where we could see a mama and baby pony on the Rhododendron trail.

When we first approached the trail head, we saw this sign. Wow! They were not kidding! The temperature on the balds really dropped! Thank goodness, i had decided to grab the kids sweatshirts on our way out the door..or we would have froze. Regardless, we were very under dressed. Next time we know better. :)


We took the Rhododendron trail, which is only about a mile. Up here on the rocks, we had a good view of the plains and were able to spot several of the grazing ponies. We saw the mama and baby not too far from us, and a couple other ponies farther up the trail.

We headed down the trail to get a closer look.

The wild ponies, were very accustomed to hikers and were not really very 'wild'. The came right up to us and followed us along the trail for a while.

We only hiked a little bit further before coming to a more ponies. We were all freezing at this point, and it had started to rain so we decided to head back and not finish the trail. Once we left the balds and returned to Massie gap, the rain had turned into more of a mist...and the temperature was about 10 warmer! So we decided to continue hiking on one of the other trails.

We chose the Cabin Creek Trail which is only about a 2 mile loop, and is follows a creek through the forest and is supposed to have waterfalls.

The scenery and colors were breath taking! The kids enjoyed pointing out all the pretty leaves on the forest floor.

The trail was gorgeous, the hike was moderate difficulty. Not exactly strenuous, but it was very rocky and everything was covered in slippery wet leaves. It seemed like a good trail for twisting an ankle or slipping and breaking something.

We saw several nice waterfalls. This one behind us is a split stream that tumbles 25 feet over the rocks into a clear, dark pool. It is much larger than it looks in the picture. Farther up the trail was an even taller one, but i was unable to get a good picture of it because of all the foliage. None of the falls were spectacular, but they were all still worth seeing, and the hike itself was really nice. There are many more trails here at Grayson Highlands, and we will definitely be back to hike here again.

Goodbye summer.

i always have a hard time letting go of the summer. So every year, rather than letting myself wallow in end of summer sadness, i really try to embrace the fall season. This means noticing and appreciating the little things that define the season, the colors, the smells, the stillness. We absorb ourselves in fall leaf crafts, apple recipes and lots of hiking and time spent outdoors.

Today we went out in search of the last of the summer wildflowers, as a way to say 'good bye' to the summer, and welcome the change of season.

The cooler weather made it easy for us to accept that summer is officially over. (although i have not yet let go of the garden. :) ) We took a walk to the bottom of the hill in search of any last monarch caterpillars. We found none, and the milkweek has all gone to seed now. The kids gathered wild asters, knapweed, goldenrod, fleabane, chicory and ox eyed daisies.

Leaves are just beginning to fall and cover the ground, but the woods are not barren yet. There is still much green creating a canopy above us. The sound of birds and life in the forest is still everywhere.

We stopped at the rhododendron grove to climb trees for a bit.

The kids pointed out all the potential fairy homes, toadstools and just really cool looking fungus.

i snapped a few pictures of our favorites. These are the flowers of the fall, appearing everywhere in a variety of colors and shapes.


i believe this is called Turkey tail, but i'm never been good at identifying fungus. Most of them change so much as they grow, and many look similar so i don't really try to identify them.


Many of them appear to be blooming. :)

There were eight or nine of these fabulous toad stools all in line. Sequoia was the first to find them, and Sage wanted to hop scotch over them. We are quite certain the fairies dwell here.

As the weather turns cooler, we will be spending less time outside and more time curled up by the wood stove. As much i look forward to the quiet moments of cuddling, crocheting and reading with a child or two on my lap...i am already missing the butterflies.

Day in Greensboro

Over Labor day weekend, my mom was in town visiting and the kids really wanted to take her to the Greensboro Science center. It is not too far from where we live, and the kids always really enjoy it.

The inside science museum has exhibits for all ages, lots of interactive hand on stuff. They have several really fun play areas that encourage imaginative play, and learning activities for kids of all ages.


Outside, in the zoo, they have a farmyard, and discovery center. The zookeeper took out a variety of animals for the kids to touch and interact with.

This one is a bearded dragon.

This Iguana was huge! Sage adored it! The kids also got to pet a ferret, bunny, rat, and ball python. They were encouraged to ask questions, as the keeper explained a bit about each animal.

Outside in the barnyard, the kids both tried their hand at milking.

We all had fun brushing the goats and sheep. Sage gave a kiss to every one.

There are lots of displays through out the zoo, with bits of information about the animals or interactive for the kids. These giants ears show the different ways that ear shapes/size affect sound.

It was a beautiful day to visit, and surprisingly un-crowded for labor day weekend. The Wallaby exhibit was closed, which was disappointing. ..but we were able to see many other animals.

As we were leaving, we noticed what looked like a pond at the back parking lot behind the Science center. So we headed over to see what what was there. We were quite surprised to find a lovely park. It has a large pond, with paddle boats and several different play areas, picnic shelters and hiking trails. We spent the rest of the afternoon playing here, and enjoying the outdoors before heading home.

As we started to head back up the mountain to Virginia, i snapped this shot of Pilot mountain behind us. This has become a familiar landmark on our weekend travels.

Growing more than vegetables.

i am so behind on this blog, you can expect to see a few older blogs come through while i play blog catch up. i actually have 5 or 6 half finished blogs saved in my drafts. So it's just a matter of me sitting down and adding words or pictures. The end of August was very busy for us. Lots of picking, freezing, canning and jam making. Sequoia started back at school, Kenan began a new work project outside the home (wow! what a transition to not have him here all the time), we are still working on house construction and my mother came and visited for several weeks. So although i continued to take pictures everyday, the blogging aspect was somewhat neglected.

Earlier this spring, i posted about our Kid's garden. You can find more ideas about planting a kids garden here.

Sequoia asked for his own garden this year, so we created a space that was about 5x5. i took him to the local garden nursery to pick out some seeds and flowers and gave him a few suggestions on where to plant, but otherwise let him do it himself.

The garden grew and produced extremely well. Here he is standing next to his sugar snaps peas as they began climbing the bamboo tee-pees.

First harvest, he picked enough green beans for dinner. He also picked a couple banana peppers, some chard, lettuce and broccoli. He was very excited, and even more excited to eat some, (not the peppers) of the vegetables that he grew himself.

This little garden produced two more meals worth of beans, at least a pound of sugar snaps, several small heads of broccoli, enough lettuce, cucumbers and yellow pear tomatoes for many salads, and lots of banana peppers. The only things that did not do well were the melons.

While mom was visiting, she helped Sequoia to pull the old plants and weeds, and get his garden ready for fall planting. He was pretty thrilled when we found some purple 'Sequoia' beans at the store, and has planted them in his fall garden along with spinach, lettuce and peas.

Letting kids have their own garden space is a great way to help connect them to nature, give them a deeper appreciation of the earth and where our food comes from, teaches responsibility and patience, and nothing can match the excitement and sense of pride a child has when he picks his first vegetable.