beautiFULL

These days have been beautifully full. We took our dying dog Paw Paw to the yearly blessing of the animals on the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi. The children all brought a chicken as well and Baby F, who is not old enough to be responsible for a pet at the blessing, brought his favorite stuffed animal fox. I am sad I didn't get any photos of the actual blessing but if you just look at the face on my baby boy in the 2nd photo from the bottom, you might understand why. 😉😇

Kevin and I took the boys to a local harvest festival while the girls were having some special Grandma time. Baby F really enjoyed the folk band that was playing. I love to see him get into music like that. The festival couldn't hold a candle to our beloved Portland Waldorf School Harvest Festivals but we still had a good time. I think the boys were just happy to see firetrucks and pumpkins. They are easy to please.

Kevin had the chance to help out our landlord in the fields last week. Of course this made him a rock star to his boys. They watched in awe as he drove by. Our landlord is teaching him everything he knows about the tractors and farm life. Kevin told him just how much our boys love watching him when he is in the fields working so he brought them a John Deere book to look at and a toy catalog. I thought that was such a kind thing to do. It was a big deal to both my boys, especially L. I am afraid to say because well, Murphy's Law, but we really, really like our landlord. He is such a kind, caring person. We feel so fortunate to be renting from him and just to know him.

This move has been a blessing to us on so many levels.

beautiFULL

Back to the Promised Land

Magnificent trees. Oh how I miss the carpet of leaves beneath my feet this time of year in Oregon. A little road trip crafting for our dear friends that are really more like family. Vegan candy corn ice cream!!! Need I say more?

The following photos were taken by Taryn.

The next batch of photos were taken with my friend Holly's Nikon camera. She is letting me borrow it at the moment (you'll see why below). This was the first time I used it and I couldn't figure out where all the setting were. I have no clue what I am doing! :) Walking up our old street to see our old Oregon house. K's nature finds from the walk on our street
Last weekend my family and I took a rather spur of the moment road trip back to the promised land AKA Portland, Oregon to celebrate a special birthday with our dearest friends and to attend Portland Waldorf School's annual Harvest Festival. We only had two days to spend there (along with two days of driving) but it was worth it for us, we needed to be back with our friends and community after two years of isolation. Our friends (aka family) were very brave in allowing our family plus our four big dogs to stay with them for the trip. What a treasure that was. Our children had late night slumber parties the whole visit, taking advantage of every minute together - our families really do love each other so.

I had plans of rekindling my love of photography (which has fallen to the wayside since we moved to Idaho - lack of inspiration, perhaps?) and capturing all of the mesmerizing beauty that is Oregon but  a moment cast by fate changed all of that. Our first day there I dropped my camera and jammed the lens so badly that it would not work at all. Of course my first reaction was fear of not being able to follow through with those plans of mine. Then a calm came over me and I realized I was meant to be fully present this trip and to take it all in with my heart instead. And so I did - the fantastic pumpkin patch party, endless amounts of beautiful autumn trees, the Harvest Festival, late night games in front of the fire, the children putting on plays for us, my friend's youngest child falling asleep so peacefully in her lap, a visit to our old house in the big woods... I won't forget them.

Little L and I even had the honor of meeting some very special people in person for the first time while we were there. My talented friend Taryn, someone I felt I have known forever but we had never actually met in person, and her son Bracken who is one of Little L's pen pals. Those two boys instantly hit it off and played for hours at the harvest festival, giving Taryn and I lots of time to talk. She is truly the warmest and sweetest person. I am so happy they made the long drive to see us! You can see Taryn's post about her trip here.

It felt so comforting and refreshing being back with all of our amazing friends, and even making new ones. I finally had the sense of home I had been missing since we had left. I admit I was a bit anxious over the trip. As much as I wanted to return, I was a bit afraid it would make my family and I even more homesick and sad back in Idaho. Thankfully that didn't seem to happen. It lifted our spirits and recharged our hearts enough to get us by these last years we have left here. I feel reinvigorated with our homeschooling and way of life after being around our friends, teachers and the school itself. Plus our close friends already have plans to come see us again in the spring and we are hoping to try to return there in the late spring/early summer (after seeing that the drive wasn't all that bad).

I try, I really do, to be happy with where I am at and what I am given. I want to always be grateful for the simple gift of being alive, but as you know I have struggled since we moved to Idaho. The isolation from like minded people has taken it's toll. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that this pregnancy has been harder on me than usual. I normally feel my best while pregnant but not this time around. My doctor actually has me scheduled for all kinds of blood work to see what is going on but I might have an idea now. While we were in Oregon, my appetite came back, my energy came back and I felt ready to take on the world. Then when we came back to Idaho, although feeling reinvigorated,  I went right back to not being able to eat, barely getting out of bed and so on. I am beginning to wonder if I might be suffering from a bit of depression here. But just as the Tomten says as he dreams of summer while enduring the long winter,

"Winters come and winters go,
Summers come and summers go,
Soon the swallows will be here."

Soon we will be back to the promised land, and that hope is enough to get me by.

Back to the Promised Land

Golden October {and a beeswax tutorial}

Autumn leaves around here are few and far between. Our yard here is very bare - quite different from the scene of our previous yard. Unable to stand it any longer, the children and I decided to take a leaf hunting walk the other day to find these elusive autumn treasures. Jackpot! A bit too old and crunchy to beeswax but perfect for playing in! None of us wanted to leave all of this autumn goodness, so we gathered up a bagful, a skirtful and an armful to bring back home with us for backyard leaf play. Totally normal, right?! and of course we dipped some leaves in beeswax to preserve the beauty of autumn just a bit longer! The leaves weren't in the best shape but really, beggars can't be choosers!

We used a few of our leaves to make a small garland by threading hemp cord through the actual leaves (instead of our usual garland method of stringing leaves on by using a needle and thread inserted into the tip of their stems.) After I had the leaves on the cord I added some beeswax acorns we made with a candy mold. To glue them in place I just dripped some hot beeswax on the back of them where the cord would go and then pressed the cord into the hot beeswax with my fingers (all these years of knitting and sewing have rendered my fingertips numb to pain.) After it was pushed in, I put a couple more drops of beeswax on top of the cord to really keep it in place.

If you have been reading this blog for awhile you know that dipping leaves in beeswax is one of our favorite things to do. Our autumn beeswax habit began in October 2009. We learned about preserving autumn leaves that way by attending Portland Waldorf School's annual Harvest Festival. You can find a few of our past leaf preserving posts here. I know there are so many more, but I honestly couldn't find all of them! It makes me so happy to see so many people in blogland beeswaxing their autumn leaves, too!

If you would like to join in the fun and preserve your own leaves - it's really quite fun and easy to do. I honestly don't know why I haven't shared the details on this project before now. I would recommend it for age four and above. Little L is three but he has been watching us do it for so long that he has the hang of it already. He did get a little burn last autumn though, when he touched the side of our beeswax pot (and that is the reason we started using a crockpot instead.) Which bring me to supplies:

leaves - the softer the better, if they are crunchy they won't last as long
beeswax - we buy it in one pound bricks locally and melt it down as is. If need be, we will cut it up before melting it (for example, if the wax is too big for the pot)
an old pot or crock pot you can devote fulltime to beeswax - You'll never be able to get the beeswax out of it so it will become your permanent beeswax pot. You will store your beeswax in it when not is use, too. We found our pot at a thrift store for a couple of bucks.
an oilcloth tablecloth, newspaper or anything else that will protect the surface you are working on - beeswax is a pain to scrape off your surfaces, and this will be a messy project. Trust me!
wax paper - we have used aluminum foil as well but the wax paper works best.
Thread or cord if you plan on making a garland -  We also like placing beeswaxed leaves on our nature table or taping them in our windows like they are falling from the trees. There are so many things you can do with them!

Basically you'll warm your beeswax in your pot or crockpot. The crockpot takes a couple of hours to melt the wax but you can walk away from it which is nice, while the pot placed on your stove top over med-low heat will melt the wax faster but you have to stay right there with it to make sure it doesn't splatter or burn. If you do happen to burn it, burnt beeswax can be saved by straining it through cheesecloth to get all the burnt pieces out of your wax.

Make sure your beeswax is nice and hot, if it is not hot enough the beeswax will create a thick layer on your leaves, not allowing the autumn colors to show through. If this happens just heat the beeswax up longer and then you can re-dip the leaf to melt the excess beeswax off.

Once your wax is melted, start dipping your leaves. You only need to dip them once, (too many layers and they become heavy and cloudy looking) then let them drip over the pot for a moment before placing them onto your wax paper to dry. Make sure to get the whole leaf so it will be fully  preserved. I highly recommend also dipping the tip of the leaf stem after the leaf has cooled down (I have mentioned this in one of my many beeswax leaves posts), it really helps the leaves retain their color longer. We have been know to keep our beeswaxed leaves up through the next spring!

Let me know if you have any questions!

ETA - I added all the supplies needed to my Amazon shop here (affiliate link).

p.s. if you in need of a fun Halloween craft there is still time to make these Waldorf Jack - o - Lanterns.

Golden October {and a beeswax tutorial}