Don’t you just love the way the sun and birds call you outside to the garden on Spring mornings?

Last year Bryles and I spent several hours shelling and sorting Fava beans. Even my active then two year old was content to sit and shell for a long duration as the sun warmed our backs and the yellow finches darted about our garden….

This year, we filled our garden beds with peas in the late winter. Bugs and harsh weather took their toll on our on the tender plants in those early months of the year, but the peas’ tendrils are now clinging tightly to our trellis.

My neighbor, amazing do-it-yourself-woman, Sharon Eisley, is busy erecting trellises of her own creation in her yard. Using the branches she trims from her apple and other trees, she creates amazing bent wood trellises that always cause me to stop and exclaim over their beauty.

Sharon started roses on this trellis, although I bet she's got peas planted at the base.

This tree's base is now surrounded by a tipi style trellis with sweet peas climbing up the sides.  We've had great fun hiding inside reading books and having picnics with the kids.

I haven't caught Sharon on video constructing her trellises, but this short "how to" shares how to easily construct such beautiful garden made trellises.

Nasturtiums are flourishing in our kitchen garden. I’m inspired to try mixing a few into a homemade butter recipe after reading this article on Going Local: “Noshing on Nasturtiums.”

 
 
 

 (photo shared via the generous Victoria Wesseler of Going Local)  Maybe I’ll see if my raw milk friends at the Leras Family farm have some extra cream for me this week.    
 If you are inspired to get gardening this year, be sure to check out a few of our amazing local resources. A Sonoma Garden offers lovely photos, detailed instructions, and inspiring ideas for families. I especially enjoy the tips they provide in their “30 Days to a Better Garden” article.   Health Action’s igrow is another helpful website. Find:

• "how to start your own food garden – anywhere
• tips for growing food all year in Sonoma County
• how to find a community garden near you
• a calendar of classes and events for growing and sharing food
• how to find resources and support for food growing
• how to find local sources of healthy food" (via http://www.igrowsonoma.org/)

February 28, 2010 update:  The Leras Family plans to sell chicks in coming weeks!  Call for more information at (707) 578-0779.

Santa Rosa hit 70 degrees just a few days ago, with the warmth lasting far into an afternoon that could easily be described as summer-like.  Well beyond five o'clock, the sky remained bright causing a great buzz of activity.  Families strolled by our court later in the evening, squirrels skitted with intensified fervor and chickens across the county laid bounties of eggs! 

While winter's short days and long periods of darkness can cause egg production to decrease, the welcome longer days of approaching Spring create happy chickens.  One lucky week we received three dozen eggs from farmers suddenly finding themselves with surplus. 

While visiting our friends the Kaisers at Singing Frogs Farm to welcome their newborn daughter, we took a short walk to enjoy the fresh air and survey the budding farm.  Our toddler boys raced to the chicken coop to search for eggs and sprinkle scratch, while we adults talked about the exciting plans for this year's Community Supported Agriculture program.  

sample of our weekly bushel from Singing Frogs 2009

In between bringing their new wee one into the world, the Kaiser family also laid out cherry tomato starts and a host of other plants to share with our family and other share holders.  Our bushel deliveries begin on May 12, but the chickens will be producing enough eggs for the Kaisers to have plenty to sell or share long before then...  They sent us home with a gift of two dozen eggs as they are already struggling to find ways to put the chicken's cheerful production to good use.

Just days later, we visited with our friends the Leras Family who provide us with raw milk through our cow share membership.  They too found themselves with a sudden surplus of eggs and ensured we walked home with another dozen. 

Later that afternoon, neighbor Sharon Eisley, stopped by with a tiny basket and cloth covering three blue eggs - the first delivery since Fall.  Last Spring we co-opted into to Sharon's chicken coop project and purchased "Chicky" an Araucana chicken which lays blue eggs - at least during the time of year with brighter, longer days.   We were pleasantly surprised by Chicky's returned desire to lay, and didn't dare mention our growing egg surplus to Sharon!

Now... what to do with all these eggs?  First and foremost, I wanted to make a batch of fresh mayonnaise.  

Fresh eggs sport near perfect lecithin, which is key to well formed mayonnaise.  Our batch this day was no exception.  I am happy to pass hand made, lacto-fermented, enzyme rich mayonnaise around my family table.  With my Nourishing Tradition's mayo recipe, I can ensure my toddler chows down his brocoli while getting a healthy dose of enzymes and Omega's!  (The "Cheese Slave" also offers a great mayo tutorial on this site.) 

Fresh eggs aren't the only benefit to raising chickens or supporting farmers who do.  My little guy has a huge hankering for hens and their "eggcentric" personalities.  We love reading chicken stories - Jan Brett's Daisy Comes Home is a favorite - and visiting our friends' backyard coops. 

Looking for your own source for fresh eggs?  Michele Anna Jordan wrote "Where to find the best eggs", which the PD featured last year.  

What about raising your own chickens?  Start with local Chicken Diva Dawn Russell and her website: Ranch Hag Hens.  Here's what Dawn says about what to expect while raising chickens:

picture taken by photographer Michael Leras

• "Hours of entertainment with their EGGcentric personalities, their clucking and strutting
• Regular supply of pasture raised, free-roaming organic eggs
• Chicken manure makes excellent fertilizer for your garden and plants
• Assist with weed control
• Excellent recyclers for your surplus fruit and vegetables
• Low maintenance family pet
• No crowing! Just happy, healthy laying hens"  

While sadly Dawn and Ranch Hags are not selling chicks this year, she offers important tips for how to ensure you get ethically treated, healthy chicks.   

1. Do some research on how many feedstore and mail order chicks are hatched -  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkuohLV2u0k
2. Try to find chicks from local providers - with a reputation for knowing how to properly vaccinate chicks for Merrick's disease - such as craigslist or a local 4H group.
3. Try to buy chickens that are 3 - 14 days old that don't have crooked beaks, bent toes, featherless bottoms, or "poopy" bottoms.
4. Carefully follow tips (See Ranch Hag's How it Works page and scroll down to Day Old Chicks) for bringing your chicks home and allowing them to settle - little chicks are easy to fall in love with as they are ultra precious and fluffy.  However, they also have a huge rate of loss.

For more great chicken raising tips, follow Dawn Russell of Ranch Hag Hens (a self-described chicken fanatic). This local Petaluma mother is now focusing on writing a book about raising chickens while selling "chicken treats." Find your own chicken inspiration as well as homeopathic, flower essences, and coop cleaning products at her "Treats for Chickens" site.

While chicks need to live in a controlled environment - say a cardboard box with a warming lamp on your kitchen table suggests Dawn Russell - older chickens will likely need a coop and or chicken run for protection, nightly roosting, eating, and egg laying. Visit the Santa Rosa Farmer's Market and find our local recycled wood chicken coop vendor or call Mack at (707) 481-1145 for one great coop resource.

The Summerfield Waldorf School warmly invites families to attend the Winter Faire on Friday and Saturday December 4th and 5th. This magical event is sure to delight family members of all ages!  Join in the annual festivities, and experience an old world style holiday. 




Winter Faire Shopping

On Friday, December 4th, join in an adult only holiday evening to complete your holiday shopping. You’ll find unique, hand-made items crafted with natural elements. From Puppenstube dolls to Sarah’s Silks to Sharon Eisley’s fairy doll houses to the Summerfield School’s “store” items such as Elsa Beskow books and Stockmar crayons, you’ll find whimsical items your children are sure to love.

Other vendors will sell jewelry, cutting boards, wooden boxes, holiday ornaments, candles, honey and other high quality, locally crafted items to fill the holiday wishes of the adults in your life.

I saved all of my holiday gift money for this event last year, and felt very pleased with my purchases.  We bought Bryles a box of Stockmar crayons, Elsa Beskow's Children of the Forest, a hand knit sweater from Peru, two wooden cars, and a wooden horse and cart.  We also purchased creamed honey from a local vendor, beeswax candles, and a lovely piece of handcrafted silver jewelry.  The lasting gifts are still happily in use in our home today, and shall remain treasured items for years to come. 

So inspired did I feel by these hand-crafted items, I worked all year to produce my own items to sell at the Winter Faire.  My booth's theme is "Wooden, Wool and Wonderful:  Upcylced and Found Treasures."  Come and feel the soft whisps of Max' the Angora goat's mohair I'll be offering or purchase a lovely ornament crafted from his fleece.  Charlie the Llama, Lin-lin and Lilac the Jacob's Sheep, and Gus the Lincoln are also offering debuting at my booth - I've hand washed and carded lots of fiber to share!  Hold a tiny wire egg basket, and dream of a child's kitchen.  Find a lovely lunch sack created from discarded clothing, or behold some other hand crafted treasure.  This crafty mama is making her debut as a vendor, and I'd love your support!

("Breakfast for Two" -
sample Sono-Ma upcycled and found treasure.)
See more Sono-Ma treasures here.

Winter Faire Festival

Return on Saturday, December 5th with the whole family. The Summerfield campus, often described as looking like a small European village, will be decked out in evergreens and ringing with the bells of holiday music. Step close to the bonfire, take a leisurely ride in a horse and carriage cart, dip a candle, and take a photo next to regal King Winter (photograph above.) Enjoy a marionette puppet show in the whimsical kindergarten classrooms.  Eat a scrumptious, organic lunch while listening to talented students and staff play instruments and sing. Gather your family close and breathe in an old world style holiday moment that is sure to fill you with joy!

In past years, our family decorated gingerbread cookies and crafted a few gifts for grandma including:  felted flower bell ornaments, wool angles, and hand-dipped beeswax candles.  The smell of evergreen hanging from every rafter and post mixed sweetly with the scent of ginger and warm wax.   After putting our hands to good work, we took a break to sip some soup, and reveled in a talented musical performance of wind and string instruments such as the reed and harp.  The simple rituals and activities filled our hearts and warmed our souls.

Ensure that you join in the classic fun this year. Print and share this flyer with your family and friends, too!

Winter Faire Poster Final PDF -3

To learn more about the Summerfield Waldorf School, please visit the website.  Mark your calendar for parenting lectures, farm tours, and other festivals that engage community members after checking the school's "upcoming events" section (lower left.)

11/26/09 Update:  Summerfield's Messenger reveals several craft activities will be offered as part of this year's Winter Faire:  Candle Dipping, Pot Pourri's, Greenery Swags, Wooden "Nature" candle-holder with candle.  Gingerbread cookie and house decorating, Hemp Woven Jewelry, and Wool Felting.  There will also be a "Snowflake Shop" where children can buy inexpensive handmade and donated gifts for their parents.  The whole family can also take part in the horse and cart rides as well as a garden stone workshop. 


(Note:  thanks to Nelson Waldorf for Marionette photo.)

While there may not be a North Pole or elves involved in this season's gift making, my friends' "workshops" are in a flurry this season.  Sawdust, thread, and wool cling to the carpets in our hallways and clutter our crafting corners.  With tight budgets, the new trend towards green living, and a renewed interest in all things hand-made, the gifts we exchange are sure to be creative.   Moms are making items ranging from fairy doll houses, slippers, and natural soaps, ensuring this is one holiday season our kids are not likely to forget!  Classes, fairs, instructional "how to's", and a guide for local stores offering great gift selections can help you create or find your own bits of magic for meaningful gifts for your loved ones...

Classes

If you've always wanted an excuse to buy or build a fairy doll house, here is your chance!  The ultimate in nature-based, green play, these homes use bits of fallen forest life to create a tiny play space for your child's limitless imagination.  Work with Sharon Eisely to create these one of a kind wonders through a workshop on December 6th.  Or purchase a custom fairy doll home of your own.

Sono-Ma Annalyce la Source says that fiber artist Monica Ashley Najmabadi's felting classes are also a great way to learn new skills while creating a completed gift.  She is taking the felted slippers class at Cast Away on Thursday November 12.  (Pictures to come soon!)

  

Craft Fairs

Who would have guessed that Sonoma County is home to more than 15 holiday craft fairs! 

My personal favorite is the Summerfield Waldorf Winter Faire, which offers unique and wonderful holiday shopping opportunities as well as whimsical activities for children.  Join in the fun on December 4 from 5:30 - 8:00 (for parents) shopping and December 5 from 11-4:00 for gift purchasing and children's activities such as candle making, wool working, puppet show and more.  Sale items include Sarah's Silks and Christine Schreier's of the ThePuppenstube.com  Waldorf dolls. 

I will also be making my first debut as a craft vendor at Summerfield's Winter Faire!  Come out and see Sono-Ma's "Wooden, Wool and Wonderful - Upcycled and Found Treasures" booth.    Mushroom tin photographed below included!

For a comprehensive list of local craft fairs print or view this file:

Support Local Moms or Become an Out of the Closet Crafter

How To Instructionals

You can stay home and try these ideas on your own time:

Lisa Fontaine featured four of her favorite holiday projects through an earlier Sono-Ma article, including a wool garland, thank-you card set, date nut bread, and hand-made gift wrap.  The kids can help with these crafts too, making these activities family-centered and fun!

Our local Christine Schreirer of Puppenstube is featured in the national publication: Living Craft Magazine Fall 2009 

for her "crazy blanket" knitting guide.  This innovative pattern features a group knitting project for making a joint gift for a co-worker, friend, or relative. 

Miss Teapot (aka Cheryl Smith) recently led Annalye la Source and me in a soap making workshop.  Cheryl guided us through making a luxurious recipe of olive and coconut oils from Better Basics for the Home: Simple Solutions for Less Toxic Living.  Cheryl offers important tips for ensuring this recipe is successful:  1.)  measure all ingredients by weight with a scale (rather than by volume with measuring cups)  2.)  use a hand blender for stirring the soap 3.)  pour soap into baby wipe containers as molds - a great re-use idea!  Miss Teapot highly recommends this book and the many simple to create, potential gifts inside.

If you are into using wool to make a range of felted, stuffed, or spun gifts, don't forget to use the Santa Rosa Tool Lending Library!  You can borrow tools and access wool working instructional videos through their website.

 

Local Stores Offering Gift Selections

I love Santa Rosa's Kindred Fair Trade Handcrafts for musical instruments, finger puppets, Russian stacking dolls, and other interesting handmade finds.  You'll find great gifts, and feel great knowing that your dollars are supporting our local economy.  Just read "6 reasons to GoLocal" if you want to pat yourself on the back!  For a list of "go local" businesses, visit the GoLocal site. 

Be sure to leave your comments with photos of your gift giving ideas or links to local workshops, fairs, or stores you'd like to promote.  Thanks!

Me?  An artist?  Well....  That is a rather loaded word for many of us.  Women of this millennium strive to "do it all" in terms of being career women AND  mothers, leaving little time for creative pursuits.  Many of us dream of what we might write, how we'd love to dance more, or instruments we'd love to dust off and play, but those things seem so indulgent and far off when dishes call, work follows us home, or the kids need a bath. 

However, my inner artist must be dying to come out, because I've found more than one excuse to bring beauty into my family's life.  Pulling out a special platter during a snack of the season's first berries, crafting special gifts for friends, and dancing with my son to the beat of the Farmer's Market band of the week.  Still, "artist" is a word I've saved for reverently referring to the people I know who dedicate their lives making money doing art.

 

For example, Sharon Eisley, art school graduate and painter, creates pieces that often have an arresting affect on me.  Before we formed a friendship, I watched this neighbor looking pregnant and beautiful working in her front yard.  Her long red hair would be wound in some complicated braid, bangs fringing her face and she'd be dressed in some hip skirt and stylish wool sweater.  I'd watch her gracefully move as though her ballooning stomach wasn't toppling her balance at all, while she tied climbing roses in interesting formations throughout her trees and over arbors.  I, who was pregnant at the same time, felt unbalanced, frumpy, and spent my energies deep cleaning rather than making beauty with roses....  I knew she was on to something with her ability to channel art while simultaneously being a mother.  More importantly, she seemed to pull her artistic abilities into mothering.

 

Just step into her home any Friday to see what I mean!  You'll find fresh cut flowers artfully arranged in a vase, candles lit on a beautifully spread table, and delicious foods including fresh, delicately braided challah bread coming out of the oven.  Sharon engages her kids in gathering the flowers, taught her boys how to braid bread, and has them help light the candles each evening.  Art flows through her everywhere.

As a first step in tapping into some of this creative energy Sharon exudes, I bought one of her paintings:  Stork.  After two years of firm friendship, I am learning ever more through watching her.  You can too if you'd like to follow her blog:  When in Home - dedicated to artists who must squeeze art into the life of being homemakers.
 

This one little move towards bringing art into my home truly inspired me to go farther. Sharon's painting reminded me how magical and powerful birds have always appeared to me.  After hanging her painting in my living room, I found a hand painted lamp featuring cherry blossoms and birds to place near "Stork."  Then, I started amassing all of the bird creatures I've collected over the years for holiday trees or gift wrapping.  I found a lovely fallen branch on a friend's property, and mounted it on my wall.  The winged creatures of the forest are now perched all over my living room, and the artist lurking in my heart is dancing a victory jig!

South East Santa Rosa must be a little known artist haven. Miss Teapot, toymaker whose items are on sale at the popular Ark Toy Stores in the Bay Area, also lives just across our court.  This wonderful maker of children's toys, fairy crowns, and magic wands often bestows her gifts on my family.  From lovely hand made cards, to tiny flower arrangements, to ADORABLE children's toys crafted from wood, wool, and other wonderous materials, many pieces of Miss Teapot's work have found their way to our doorstep.  Miss Teapot likes to surprise us by leaving our gifts on the porch, much to our delight!  Last summer, Bryles received the amazing birthday treasures of three little gnomes (see picture at the beginning of this post) and a whole set of hand cut and burned wooden blocks.

 

Miss Teapot does wonders for helping me with my desire to provide Bryles with a few, high quality toys made from natural materials.  Her gifts are always well loved and well used.  However, after receiving such a range of handmade items, I started to get a little envious of Miss Teapot's abilities!  Last Fall, I convinced her to take me on as a crafting student, and she set about teaching me the basics of sewing, cooking, and other important skills she has mastered.  I relish our time together, and seem to have a never ending lists of requests for her to teach me:  felting, card making, quilting, paper doll making, and more are on our agenda for future months.

   

My friend, Annalyce la Source, saw some of my creations (hats, curtains, pillows, toys- even my own gnomes pictured below!) and heard the joy pouring through me while I described my experience.  Lamenting the fact that her own crafty mother was too engrossed to pass on many of her domestic art skills, she asked if Miss Teapot might take her on as well.  Now we are both happily sewing away during weekly sewing lessons!

Infusing art into mothering allows me to move away from thinking of my self as Cinderella (and her never ending list of chores), to seeing myself as the creator of family magic and beauty.  Today I am taking conscientious steps towards channeling my own art, and yes, maybe even using the label of artist for myself.  I began reading the "Artists' Way" and signed up for the Emily Carr workshop in July through Nurturing Arts.  Mary Bowen, Nurturing Arts teacher and founder, is sure to take me out of my normal "thinking mode" by helping to expose me to interesting anthroposophical exercises.  For those that know Grandma Mary, you know that taking one of her workshops is sure to be a soul enriching treat!  Through these activities I'm learning the more creative I allow myself to be, the more energy I have for mothering and the more enriched our family life stands to become.

This movement of moms teaching each other how to bring creativity to the family is growing like wildfire. If you'd like to join in, read Amanda Blake Soule's Creative Family (see Amazon portal "Our Family Reads" on sidebar to buy this book). Ask your neighbor to teach you how to can jam this summer. Find a co-madre who can show you how to sew or stay tuned to Sono-Ma's future articles about rediscovering the domestic arts!