Hello Fall ~ Apple Picking

 Fall is definitely settling in for an extended stay :)

The leaves are turning beautiful reds, oranges and golds, the mornings are cool and crisp, even the evening fog that creeps through the fields at dusk has reappeared but the real highlight is that the apples are finally ready!

 With our baskets in hand we made our way down the lane to the apple trees that my dad has been tending for over a decade.

 Why is it that the best apples are always out of reach :)

 With an apple eye view L got busy picking the biggest apples she could find...

 and passing them down to her brother...

 who was waiting below hoping to fill up his basket first :)

 For the really hard to reach apples my dad has this really great tool that has rake like prongs on the tips to catch around the stems of the apples and then it pulls them off the branches and they land gently on the foam pad inside the basket :) So much better than trying to shake them off of the tree *grin*.

 The children waddled home under the weight of their apple basket with giant smiles on their faces and thoughts of all the ways that we were going to be able to eat them.

 Apple muffins, apple pancakes, apple slices dipped in nut butter, apple pie...

oh it's apple heaven *grin*.

Hugs,

Rosina

O Tannenbaum

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum!
Du kannst mir sehr gefallen!
Wie oft hat nicht zur Weihnachtszeit
Ein Baum von dir mich hoch erfreut!
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum!
Du kannst mir sehr gefallen!

Hubby is finally home for the holidays so we all hopped into the truck and headed out into the forest in search of the perfect Christmas tree :)

As we drove we climbed higher and higher up the mountain and our view overlooking the lake below became more beautiful...

and we even found some snow *grin*.

We finally picked the perfect tree and the children each took a turn sawing through its trunk and off home we went with our tannenbaum :) We've set it outside the front door for the night to dry off a bit and tomorrow it will make its way into our family room where we can get it all decorated up just in time for Christmas eve!

Sunday saw us light our fourth candle for advent and you should have heard the squeals of delight as the youngest two realized that we were only days from Christmas :) We made our last trip into the city this morning to pick up a few last minute things we needed and now we're ready to snuggle down in our home for the rest of the holidays.

Hubby is home until the day after boxing day and I couldn't have wished for a better Christmas present! We're all together and what a special time we will have :)

Hugs,
Rosina

Little Helper

When wood heat is your only source of warmth in your home one can never seem to have enough firewood *grin*.

The steep road that my dad has cut up through the mountain behind our home is not suitable for driving on during the summer months because the ground is just to soft but in the dead of winter when the ground has finally frozen rock solid you can drive all the way to the top. A ride up or down is not for the faint of heart though. On the way up the nose of the truck just points towards the sky and with the road being so narrow it feels like the slightest wrong move may send you plummeting over the edge *grin*. I swear the man is fearless!

My youngest guy was so happy to help with firewood today :)

Even though there were smaller sticks that he could easily move in the back of the truck he was drawn to the oversized rounds that required a lot of 'man' power *grin*. He tries so hard up with big brother and Opa!

The temperature has warmed up slightly today and the clouds started to roll in. It's always nice to have that little bit of cloudy insulation during the night time. It makes my job of keeping the house warm easier :) There's talk of snow for tomorrow to so I'm hoping that we wake up to a fresh blanket of snow in the morning!

Hugs,
Rosina

Weaving Cedar Bark

Earlier this week the kids and I had a chance to participate in one of the many fantastic homeschool programs that a nearby museum offers. This class was particularly exciting because we were going to learn how to weave a mat using red cedar bark. So cool!

The above photo shows a coil of bark that had been harvested from cedar trees only minutes from where we live. Members from the museum went out into the forest with a first nations guide and he showed them exactly how to harvest the bark from living cedar trees without damaging them. They had a photo slide for us to view and the fellow said a little prayer/blessing to the cedar tree before cutting into the bark and then they pulled strips of bark off of the tree in giant lengths reaching from the base of the trunk all the way upwards. Once the bark was pulled from the tree they then separated the softer in bark from the rough outer bark and the inner portion was what we worked with :)

When we arrived there were strips of the bark that had been soaked for a couple of days to soften them and make them pliable for weaving waiting for us on the tables.



We started with a very basic basket weave pattern of just weaving the strips in and out of each other while alternating the pattern so it looked like a checker board.



As soon as all of the pieces had been woven we started to work the ends in by flipping them over and weaving them into the opposite sides. It looked really simple when we were shown how to do it but when it was time to do it ourselves you really had to pay attention to which way you flipped the ends because one wrong move and you muddled your pattern *grin*.

Here are two of the little woven mats the children made. As you can see there were a few little boo boos where the pattern got a little mixed up :)

We all had so much fun and now I'm tempted to try pulling some of the bark off of a few of the cedar trees we have here on our property *grin*. I think I'm supposed to wait until spring though so that will give me a little more time to find out exactly how to do it so that I don't hurt the trees :)

Hugs,
Rosina