On our holiday visit, I went out on a walk admiring my Mother's flowers, and was reminded that gardens have beautiful things to show us year round. ...
Seasons
Yuletide Greetings
Wishing you a peaceful Winter Solstice from our mountain hearth. ...
Decking Out the Halls
On these cold, short winter days, I have been keeping busy around the homestead getting it spruced up for the holidays (pun intended) with greenery brought in from the outdoors. Wreaths, swags, garlands and trees are an age old tradition that I thoroughly enjoy participating in every year. Evergreen trees and boughs have a long, rich history in decking the halls, and standing as symbols of life ...
Finding Our Family Tree
Going out and finding the right tree is one of my favorite parts of the holidays. It has been a family tradition of mine forever, beginning with trips to the Lazy J Tree Farm and taking on many variations over the years including other tree farms, Forest Service permits, and even a tiny fir tree gifted in the Christmas spirit from a kind old man at a tree lot the first winter I was a single parent ...
Counting Down the Days
I just had to show off my fun thrift store find of the month. I remember having a lot of fun with our Advent calendar when I was growing up, and always looked forward to every morning when my brother and I would take turns putting up one of the little Velcro packages, candy canes, elves, etc. on the calendar day getting us closer to Christmas. I did Advent wreaths and the little chocolate filled ...
The Big Snow of 2013!
Simply by the fact that this is noteworthy, you can tell we don't get a lot of snow around here. If we do, it doesn't stick around for very long, so it's a big deal! Yesterday morning we woke up to snow coming down, and before we knew it, there were over 7 inches with no sign of going anywhere. The town shut down, school was cancelled, and folks holed up in their homes and enjoyed the snow day. We ...
The Stockings Were Hung by the Chimney With Care
It's only taken me years, but I finally have everyone's stocking in the house finished BEFORE the holidays! I gave myself a hearty pat on the back for this. I started my handmade stocking project with recycled wool sweaters and needlefelting almost 5 years ago, and always seemed to find time to work on it in January after the winter festivities had passed. Corey's stocking is the newest addition; ...
The Work of Jack Frost
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Welcoming Winter
Even though it happens every year, waking up on the morning of the first hard frost is always an amazing event. Seeing everything transformed from the bright hues of fall into a scene of glittering white makes the inevitable onset of winter more welcome somehow. We trade off those long days of working out in the garden for cozy evenings by the woodstove and shift all the outward energy inward. ...
Jack-O-Lantern Fun
We like to have a lot of fun around here on Halloween, and there are few things so fun as turning a pile of pumpkins into fanciful luminaries. It seems like every year we come up with more and more creative jack-o-lantern ideas, and inspiration from other people's pumpkins. As I am often thinking about wild mushrooms this time of year, there usually ends up being at least one fungus-themed lantern ...