Dreaming of Spring

Sometimes winter can be long . . . very long. It seems like no matter how much dreaming of spring and summer you do, it is always just beyond reach. I'm sure like many others, I have been doing my share of dreaming of warmer weather lately.

On my windowsill I have a little plant that keeps me dreaming. It's a little sweet potato vine in a jar of water. For quite a few years in a row, I have started my sweet potato cuttings from, well, sweet potatoes. (You can read more about that by searching "sweet potato" on the right sidebar of my blog -which if you want to do, now would be a good time to start). This year I decided to try something different to see if I could skip a step - using an established vine to get my cuttings for garden starts.


Before the weather turned bitter, I took a cutting from my sweet potato plant in the garden. I brought it inside and stuck it in a jar of water. I was quite excited because I was starting out with a beautiful looking vine. The leaves were big, green, and abundant. Before I knew it, however, the leaves started to fall off one by one. Pretty soon I was looking out my window at winter weather with a virtually leafless vine in a jar of water. With only a couple of leaves left, no bigger than my thumbnail, I didn't have much hope for the little vine.

I would have almost thrown it away if I hadn't seen what was going on under the water though. I noticed a few white bumps on the vine. And as I continued to watch them, they continued to grow. Into roots. And not just little roots. Long, healthy, white roots.

As these roots were growing, there wasn't much going on above the surface of the water. Just a few little leaves that continued to hang on. But as time continued to pass, and as the roots continued to grow, a few new leaves started to emerge. Although little at first, they were beautiful to see. These little leaves soon grew bigger, and a few more little leaves burst forth.

Sometimes it seems like this snow and cold is here to stay, but when I look out the window I am first greeted by my little sweet potato vine reminding me that spring IS coming. And although above the surface it might still look a little rough, it has been lucky to have had the winter to do some growth under the surface so that when spring does come, it can take off and be used to produce fruit . . . err . . . vegetables.

Jonathan Thomas Book

Crooked Gap Farm is pleased to introduce our newest farm hand - Jonathan Thomas Book!

Jonathan was born January 6th and is doing great. He was 10 days late, helping him grow to be our biggest baby - 7 lbs, 9.8 ounces. (Caleb, our first born, had to give up his record of 7 lbs 1 oz.)

Jonathan is doing great, and Caleb (6), Hannah (5), and Isaac (2) are each enjoying him immensely.

Christmas Projects

Each year I like to make something for the kids for Christmas. As I was looking at the photos of last year's projects (one is similar to what I'm doing this year), I remembered I started a post last year that I never published. So here it is. I will admit, I wish I could have made as many gifts this year, but since tomorrow is Christmas Eve, I will be happy to just get done what I have planned for my kiddos. I'm close! Now back to work!!

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This Christmas (2009) I wanted to make some gifts, but with watching spending and with fabric stores 45 minutes away (Walmart no longer has fabric) I decided I would have to do it from the fabric on hand. Making gifts is sometimes tricky for me - trying to think of something that someone will appreciate and that matches who they are. Right now my main "homemade" skill is sewing, but hopefully I'll pick up some more skills down the road.

Here's what I made:
This is a Tic Tac Toss game for our son, Caleb. (5 yrs old in 2009)

A bib for our son Isaac. (Just turned 1 in 2009)

A blankie and pillow to go with our daughter, Hannah's, baby doll. (Just turned 4 in 2009)

"Grandma's Memory Gameboard/Placemat" This was for my mom. I made it out of scraps from my grandma's (my mom's mom) fabric stash. Memories for her of her mom and for her to make memories with her grandkids. The spring side: My grandma always had a cheery flower bed in the spring and summer.

The fall side: This is the other side of the placemat. My grandma's kitchen was deep browns and yellow.

A gardening apron for my mom. This was actually for her birthday, which is right before Christmas.

Follow The Beginning Farmer's Wife on Facebook for additional personal peeks at building a family farm.

Absence = A Glimpse

If you have been following my blog, you have probably noticed my absence. As much as I would like to blog more, I think that my lack of blogging compared to when me moved to the farm paints a bit of a picture of what life is like as a beginning farmer's wife. I could pass it off to homeschooling, pregnancy (which I'm in my 9th month now), or a variety of other things.

The reality is that any free time I had before we moved to the farm has now been given to the farm: marketing, juggling meat and inventories, deliveries, monitoring our business Facebook page, outside work, etc. Please don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. Most of the time I really enjoy farming related things as my "free time" activities. All of this to say though, keeping a journal - which is what I wanted my blog to be for me - has fallen lower on the list. Instead of recording my farmer's wife activities, I'm just doing more of them. :)

If you are a follower of my husband's blog, The Beginning Farmer, you may have noticed the same pattern with his blog since we moved to the farm. He is going to try to get it up and going again though, for farm reasons rather than journal reasons (although it will definitely still have journal type entries), so I encourage you to hop on over and follow along. By the way, it's definitely not because he has more free time than I do. He's just able to get less sleep than I can. And he has a wife who will wake him up in the middle of the night encouraging him to come to bed after he has fallen asleep from working too late.

Also, don't give up completely on me. I hope to sporadically post yet. (If you want to catch them all, you can subscribe to my blog on the right and receive them by e-mail.)

Keeping Calm and Consistent

We try to be quite consistent with our parenting. The kids do a lot better when they know what we expect and know what consequences will be if they misbehave. I have found the big issues are sometimes easiest to deal with. There is need for a definite consequence, it usually needs to be handled right away, and it is usually not to hard too figure out what that consequence will be.

What was a struggle for me for quite awhile was the "little" things. Things like whining, scowling, not following or ignoring instructions, things that didn't make me drop everything I was doing to handle the problem but made me start repeating myself: "Don't whine.", "Did you hear me?", etc. I also noticed that these were the things that started getting me frustrated to where one time I would not give any consequences and then all of the sudden I was fed up and gave a big one. Not very consistent.

So, here is what I came up with for some of those "little" things. The Magnet.

I took a recipe card, wrote each kid's name on the card, and, drew a line across the middle. I then cut small pieces of magnet off of a craft strip of sticky magnets and stuck it on the back of each card so the card would stick to the fridge. Next, I let the kids choose a special shapes from their little foam sticker collection. (The number can depend on the maturity of your children.) I also stuck little pieces of sticky magnets on the back of the foam stickers. The sticker magnets would then be able to stick to the fridge over the card.

Here's how it works. When something goes on that is not a character trait I want my children to have, but really doesn't require a big consequence, I tell them that they have lost a magnet. They then go over to the fridge and move a magnet under the line. If they don't do this, or do it with a poor attitude, I inform them that they have just lost 2 magnets, which can turn in to 3, etc. When they run out of magnets, they have earned a consequence. Sometimes this is no desert, sometimes it's time in their room - it really depends on what their magnets were being dropped for. At the end of the day, all of their magnets are reset.

I feel that this allows me to be consistent to where the kids know what they are doing isn't appropriate, it gives them chances to revise their behavior, and it allows me to give a significant consequence for a "little" thing to help them learn while remaining consistent in how I react.

Here is one of my favorite verses for parenting. A lot of times it is quoted to the children, but I think that if it was studied by parents more (including myself), children wouldn't have such a hard time with the first part of it.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother"—which is the first commandment with a promise— "that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth." Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Ephesians 6:1-5

I'd love to hear some of the things you do to keep your parenting sanity. :)


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A Raspberry Patch: Free and Simple

Here's what you need:
~ A spot to plant raspberries
~ An established raspberry patch (and permission)
~ Heavy gloves
~ Pruners
~ A bucket of water

Here's what you do:
~ Find canes that have arched over into the ground. Look for brown stems at the bottom which turn green at the opposite end. The green end, if in the ground, will have just started to shoot roots.
~ Clip the vines about 2-3 feet from where the green end goes into the ground first. (This will allow the old cane to not be damaged.) Then pull steadily on the cane with the green end until you pull the roots out of the ground. This will work best when the soil is wet or there isn't a lot of weed cover at the base of the vines.
~ Put the root ends of the cane immediately into water.
~ You may then take them home and plant them with a small trowel or you can allow them to soak a bit more in water to establish more roots before planting.

For the planners:
If you take the arching canes in late summer and place them in a bucket of water before they reach the ground, they will sprout roots and you won't even need to pull them. :)

Here are some pictures of some black raspberries I cut and pulled from my parents last week. My transplanted berries from last year all root rotted with the rains mid summer, so I am trying again.

Wallypop

A couple weeks ago I received an e-mail asking if we used cloth diapers. We have actually been using them for the last 6 1/2 years, since our oldest son was born. I have recovered a lot of my prefolds, made a few more diaper covers, and added in some washable wipes, but other than that I am still using everything I started in with Caleb. I wish I knew just how much we have saved over our 3 kids who have used these, and soon to be 4.

Well, this week I opened a package to find these great diapers sent from Sarah, who is the owner of Wallypop in Des Moines, IA. Not only are they cute, but they are well constructed and very soft! I've never used diapers like this before, although I have admired them and wondered about them - so I am very excited to give them a try!I encourage you to head on over to Sarah's website, wallypop.net, and check out not only her diapers, but also her other products for natural living.

Thanks so much for the great gift, Sarah!