'Tis the Season...Really!

I absolutely love Christmas! It is by far my favorite holiday, and because I love it so, it has always seemed ironic that a holiday about love and peace is fraught with so many possibilities for stress and self-inflicted guilt. In our house we also have two birthdays occurring within 14 days of Christmas, which adds to the busy-ness of the weeks in December.

A few days back my friend Amy posted a link on Facebook to www.familieswithpurpose.com. The site contains a free e-book called, "Eight Weeks to a Frazzle-Free Christmas." My curiosity was piqued. Downloading commenced.

Reading through, it's pretty straightforward advice. In the first three weeks you are set to such tasks as listing family traditions, creating Christmas menus, setting a holiday budget, making a greeting list, & purchasing Christmas cards & stamps. Things we all know we have to do, but that I've never thought about before Thanksgiving. Usually, I'm happy to tackle one holiday at a time! However, knowing how busy past Christmases have felt, I decided to give "Frazzle-Free Christmas" a test drive.

I first chose to revisit my Christmas greeting list from last year. (That was actually fairly easy for me to do, since I hadn't gotten rid of the pile of last year's greetings!) While Tuba Boy napped, I sat down to re-read letters and smile at pictures of friends & family. Oh...and I also did my duty of making my list, counting to see how many greetings I would plan to send.

In the last fourteen years our greeting list has dwindled from about 150 to just under 80. I have a lot of issues with Christmas greetings---some environmental, some about timeliness (which I sometimes lack), and some with just plain being cheap. Environmentally speaking, choosing to send a Christmas card is a sticky issue. Factor in that I live in western PA, where the green movement is, shall we say, still arriving slowly. After looking online and coming up with some gorgeous (but pricey & unrealistic) options, I chose to peek in the four aisles of Christmas decor in Target. (In the past I've been disappointed at the lack of recycled cards available here, but if you don't have hope, what do you have?)

And what to my wondering eyes should appear?

Five---count them, five---selections of holiday greeting cards printed on recycled paper! Since I had followed the Frazzle-Free plan and reviewed my list, I knew exactly how many cards I needed to purchase! It took but a moment to scoop up five boxes of my choice and plunk them next to Tuba Boy in the cart.

So, Miss A K, to you and to the team at Families With Purpose, I would like to say "Thanks!" for the beginning of my Frazzle-Free Christmas. Thanks to your link and my decision to attempt organization, I was able to take advantage of a good price on a great recycled card.

And that really is the beginning of a holly, jolly Christmas!

New Life...Old Materials

Five points to the first reader who correctly determines the origin of the concrete block pictured below:



Ding ding ding! You're right---that block with the brown paint originally belonged to one of the brown cabins at Camp Lutherlyn.

One of the many benefits of Fred's job at Lutherlyn is the permission he is given to scavenge for materials. The grounds crew does not waste anything---even during demolition. Sometimes whole pieces of buildings can be reused, such at the two cabin roofs that were used to make the original roof at Terra Dei. At other times, materials are taken apart and set aside for unknown future use. Sometimes items are stored for years and years...

In this case, I needed concrete block for my girls' new strawbale coop. There were a number of options I had considered for the foundation: rubble trench, a poured concrete footer, or dry-laid concrete block. Anyone who knows us knows that reusing (as in, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) is near and dear to our hearts. But, following a close second is a sincere desire not to pay for things that can be acquired for free! I really didn't want to put much money into this project, having just finished building our house. With taking down so many of the original block cabins in the last few years, we immediately thought of checking with P to see if any were available. P quickly gave Fred the go-ahead, and we set about hauling block.

(Actually, there was no "we" in the hauling of the block. Thanks to my dad and his Durango, we had all the block we could ask for in two days.)



Thanks to our friends at Lutherlyn, the foundation for our new coop is just about complete. We were pleased to be able to reuse block that still had a lot of life left in them. (As an added bonus, that spot behind the shop is just a little less crowded...)



Another side benefit of reusing block, I learned a new skill. Fred showed me how to use a small sledge and a chisel to remove old mortar. Let me tell you, I thought a lot about the phrase, "A chip off the old block!"



Now, to find a free door...

I'll huff, and I'll puff...

When you build a strawbale house, you get a lot of Three Little Pig jokes.
There's just no way around it.

In spite of that, we've tackled our next strawbale project. Want a hint?



My hens (a.k.a. "the girls") currently reside in a henhouse at the rear of my grandmother's garage.

Some of you might remember that we lived in a brick house---the Gatehouse---on my parents' property during construction. Anyway, shortly after we moved into the Gatehouse (January 2008), I was struck with homesteading fever. My house was due to be ready in July, 2008. If I wanted a laying flock of hens at my new house, I needed to order them in May.

(At this point, some readers might be doing the mental math and feeling confused. "2008? But they didn't move into the straw house until 2009..." Right...)

May, 2008: I was living in a house that I didn't own, with 14 Australorp chickens in my bedroom. The summer solution was to house the girls in a chicken tractor in the field out back. My prayers were answered late in the fall when my parents very nicely agreed that the small room at the back of garage could easily be transformed into a winter residence for the girls.

May, 2009: We moved! Enter Great-Grandma.

Great-Grandma is my maternal grandmother. As soon as we moved to Haven she took up residence in the Gatehouse. Although initially disdainful of the girls, she seems to have come around to appreciating their finer points (i.e., free eggs) and has even been observed talking to them on occasion. Though she might not admit it, I think she likes their company.

Chickens are fairly easy to care for in the summer. A little food, a little water, room outside to stretch their legs, and they're pretty happy. Contrast that with caring for them in the winter, when the challenges of keeping poultry increase exponentially.

Maybe I'm exaggerating when I say exponentially. The largest challenge is that we live in Pennsylvania, where the winters can get cold. Drinking water becomes compromised when the temperature in the coop gets below freezing---which can happen for weeks at a time. As clean water is imperative to keeping poultry, last winter found me filling the waterers with hot water from my basement twice a day. It's one thing to traipse down to your own basement in boots encrusted with mud and chicken droppings. It's quite another thing to ask the same of your grandma and her clean floor...

Hence the need to move the girls to a permanent residence. Plus, I can't wait to have them foraging in the woods around our home! Goodbye, ticks!!!

The coop will be strawbale construction, sharing a wall with the back of our garage.

We started digging the trench and laying the block for the footer earlier this week. The weather here has been beautiful, perfect for working outside!




More details and photos to come as construction progresses. In the meantime, I think I'll pass my back issues of Backyard Poultry along to Great-Grandma.

Just in case she misses the girls.

To teach, or not to teach...

I recently had the pleasure of spending a day at my daughter's school as a substitute teacher. It truly was a pleasure. My daughter was down the hall, my son able to drop-in and play at the childcare center at the school. The room was impeccable, the plans were neatly laid on the desk, the children were polite and well-behaved. It was a substitute's dream!

It really gave me some food for thought. What on earth am I going to do once Tuba Boy is in school?

You see, I used to be a classroom teacher.

I was a dedicated teacher, practically living in my classroom. In by seven, home by six. I always carried a large bag of work to check and a list of consumable supplies to pack for experiments and activities the next day.

I didn't mind, because it was what I did. It was who I was. And I assumed that once my children were "on their own" in school, so to speak, I'd live that life again. Now, I'm not so sure I want to.

With a family to care for, my heart is at home. I rejoice in the many facets of our life together. Our time as a family is something I want to guard and treasure, for I know these moments won't come again. That simply isn't compatible with the life I once led.

So the question isn't really "To teach, or not to teach...?"

The question becomes twofold:
"What kind of career will allow me to work toward something worthwhile, something in line with my beliefs?"
"What can I pursue that will also allow for worship, volunteer and playtime with my family?"

Hmmm...Good thing Tuba Boy is only three and a half!

In the meantime, I'm off to watch the kids play a rousing made-up game called "Crow & Scarecrow." (Very fun, lots of screaming!) Then we'll turn our attention to the sugar cookies that desperately need the final touches of icing and sprinkles.

Come on over. We'll save a cookie for you.

Shhh! It's a secret!

Maybe my blog is a secret. Maybe not. It depends on who you are... ;) For a while, I'm not advertising the existence of my blog to friends and family. I want some time to get my feet wet.

Here's the thing: I love to write! I am not necessarily good at writing, but I love the process of writing---considering ideas, turning phrases in my mind, choosing what will actually come out of my pen (or keyboard.) I think a blog will be an excellent way for me to journal about my Life Under a Blue Roof. If you appreciate what I write, that's fantastic! (And if you don't, then it's a good thing you didn't pay $16.95 at Barnes & Noble to read this!)

Those of you who don't know me may be wondering about Life Under a Blue Roof. My husband and I recently "completed" construction of a strawbale home in May. My roof? Blue!

Fred and I traveled to the Big Island of Hawaii in July, 2005. Many of the homes there have metal roofing in a variety of colors. The color that I identify most with Hawaii is a tranquil blue. While I knew it would be an impossibility to transplant my life to Hawaii, choosing a blue metal roof for my new home was my way of acknowledging my inner wish to live the rest of my life out at South Point on the Big Island.

So part of the title is a literal throw to blogging about my life in and around my home with a blue roof.

The actual name of my home is Haven Homestead.

Fred and I took months to name our home. Naming implies permanence and purpose. It was very important to us to choose a name that conveyed the spirit of our home. (As opposed to a cheesy, random name, like "Kozy Rest.") We took the first part, "Haven", from a farm that Fred's Uncle & Aunt used to own. When Fred and I would visit Haven Farm, we truly felt the peace that exuded from every nook and cranny. The second part, "Homestead", describes our land and the sustainable work in which we try to engage. (Plus, the alliteration works well!)

Our choice in naming our home was not popular with everyone. ("Everyone" meaning our son & daughter.)

My daughter Jewel wanted to name our home, "The Blue Roof House."

So Jewel, though you don't yet realize it, this blog is named for you.

Welcome to our Life Under a Blue Roof!