Author: kris

Chicken Pox + Healing Herbs

Taking a break from being online as we walk through chicken pox. Strangely, our 13 year old nephew has it. He didn’t live with us when he was little, and was immunized up to age seven. I hadn’t really thought about whether or not he’d had chicken pox. It’s a bittersweet thing, this chicken pox being in our home. So many times we’re invited to chicken pox parties where we can expose our kiddos to the virus so they can get it over with as kids rather than have a hard time with it as adults. I haven’t yet been up for welcoming chicken pox into our home and nursing four children through it. I also hadn’t gathered up enough nerve to intentionally expose them to a virus that while generally fairly laid back, may surprise us with its ugly side.

Now that decision is out of my hands (the sweet part) and we’re in this thing. One child in the thick of it, and three to go! Last night we mixed up a bath pouch with oats, chamomile, calendula, and nettle to drop into the warm bathwater and squeeze over the worst parts of the rash. The teapot held chamomile, nettle, elderflower, and red raspberry leaf tea – all healing herbs that are said to help with the itch.

The 13 year old shares that a wet compress does wonders to relieve the itch – his preferred uses are a wet towel wrapped around his head to combat the itch on his scalp, or draped over his back. Soak that cloth or towel in some healing herbs, and double the benefits.

Hoping we can walk through this without too many (or any) scars, and that all these nourishing and healing herbs and remedies will take the edge of the itch that will be a part of our family for the next while.

Have you dealt with chicken pox? Share your favourite tips and remedies in the comments!

This post was shared as a part of Thank Goodness It’s Monday and Natural Living Monday.

February 24, 2014
Farm Learning :: An Olive Grove

This post is the first in a series of posts that share some wonderful places we visited on a trip to California that we won (for two) through Vita Health Fresh Market in the fall of 2012. We have been dreaming of living on a farm for about a decade and are always looking for unique learning opportunities. On this trip we visited several farms and fantastic restaurants, coming home refreshed and inspired.

After a lovely visit to Ojai, California, where we rented bikes and a double trailer and cruised along the gorgeous bike path through the trees to the Ojai Day Festival, we drove to Omaggio Farm for an olive oil tasting.

Oh my goodness. Layer upon layer of beauty. We found a quaint storefront set in a pretty garden, surrounded by an olive grove set into the countryside of southern California. We sat with a group of lovely folks at a picnic table for the tasting. Two flavourful olive oils, hand-crafted on site with olives grown on the property, were set out with a simple Italian bread. Paired with the oils were about six vinegars imported from Italy – fig, balsamic, and champagne-peach, to name a few. After the tasting, we took a stroll around the beautiful olive grove and took in the fresh mountain air before we said goodbye to Ojai.

It was a really special experience, given that we use quite a lot of olive oil at home for salad dressings, bread dipping, and more. Just one more piece of the puzzle as we all learn together about the food that nourishes us. For information on olive oil purity and sourcing, read Kristen’s post at Food Renegade here.

On the way out of town, we dined at The Farmer and the Cook, a little restaurant and health food store serving local organic fare. It was delicious and nourishing, and we were happy to stock up on healthy snacks from their marketplace before hitting the road.

* Photos by Kris Antonius and Mike Berg

* We are not receiving any compensation from Vita Health Fresh Market for sharing stories about our trip or sharing their link. We have been happy customers of our local Vita Health Fresh Market since we were married almost twelve years ago, and still shop there today. The staff there have seen us through two pregnancies and multiple food allergies and are so loving and kind to our children.

This post was shared as a part of Thank Goodness It’s Monday and Fat Tuesday.

February 20, 2014
The Week in Photos

$impromptu math activity$

This week included…

:: curling out at the lake house with a papa (yep, milo really took that shot!)

:: lots and lots of valentine’s day love – a list of folks we love to add to throughout the week, felted balls for a garland, cards and more cards, heart shaped sandwiches and heart shaped juice ice cubes along with fruit parfaits…

:: olympics love – we watched the women’s biathlon with skiing and shooting and the kids made targets to tape to our window and have an indoor track and archery range in the works for their own olympics. note the mess in the living room – this is how it often is – laundry, toys, a blanket attached to the dresser for a fort… sigh.

:: trying to keep up with our gratitude journals – such a nice way to be intentional about thankfulness

:: lots of learning about birds, nests (note a little one in his own cozy nest), math, electricity, cats, cooking, and more

:: outside play time working on our forts, enjoying visits to the local playground – i hear talk of being mountain climbers as they gear up to head outside right now…

February 16, 2014
Felted Ball Garland

Wet felting is such a simple and warm activity – it’s a great one to set out any time of the year, but particularly in cold weather, when you’re in a pinch and need a quick to prepare craft, or a calming activity. Before stringing on the balls, you can even take some time to work on patterns as you figure out which one is right for you.

For Valentine’s Day, we worked on felted balls and made a small garland. This same thing can be done for birthday parties, home decor, jewellery, and more.

A few other felting projects we’ve made include felted balls for our hand-crafted sling shot, and felted stones + soap.

Here’s what we did for the garland… even our kitty, Luz, enjoyed it. I untangled this thing so, so many times.

MATERIALS

:: wool roving in desired colours

:: warm water

:: biodegradable dish soap

:: towels for cleaning up spills

:: optional: a story or audio story to listen to while felting as it is, well, a process!

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Pour warm water into a pot or large bowl, set on top of a towel.

2. Add dish soap to the water. Keep the soap handy as you may need to add more as you go.

3. Take a piece of roving the size of a large egg and wrap it up into a ball.

4. Dip it in the warm, soapy water and give it a squeeze.

5. Roll the wet, soapy roving in the palms of your hands as though you’re making a ball type cookie.

6. Now and then, dip the ball back into the water – as you work the roving, it should be sudsy.

7. Once the ball is fairly small and firm, and there aren’t strands of roving still unattached, you can set it aside to dry and start a new one.

8. Repeat until you have your desired number of felted balls! Have fun!



TO MAKE A GARLAND

Simply choose a string and using a fairly large needle (has to be sharp – children’s needles didn’t work for us on this one), thread the balls onto the string in any pattern you like!

Looking for Valentine’s Day inspiration? Check out our Pink Valentine’s Tea!

FREE Valentine Tags for tea, jam & honey:

Don’t miss our Farm Fresh Valentine’s Cards – A set of three printable cards to print and paint or colour. Great for food & nature lovers of all ages.



This post was shared as a part of Montessori Monday,  Thank Goodness It’s Monday, and Hip Homeschool Moms, and

Tags: freebie, tea label, valentine’s day

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February 15, 2014
A note…

February 14, 2014
Farm Fresh Valentines

Spread some love this week (or anytime!) – find these printable valentines in the shop. Print in black and white and add your personal touch with watercolours, pencil crayon or whatever medium you prefer. If you use these, we’d love to see what you create – leave a comment below with a link or email us some photos!

The canning jar can also be cut out and hole punched to use as a sweet tag…

This post was shared as a part of Montessori Monday, Natural Living Monday, Simple Lives Thursday, Unprocessed Fridays, and Fight Back Friday.

February 12, 2014
Bird Love Links

A collection of links for more bird learning…

Okay, so almost all these sites are developed by one or more of these organizations – and they are all really helpful. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Bird Studies Canada, and the National Audubon Society. These seem like the most visited and well-presented bird studies sites I have come across.

1. Participate in citizen science :: The Great Backyard Bird Count

2. Canadian bird education and conservation :: Bird Studies Canada

3. United States bird education and conservation :: National Audubon Society

4. Online guide to birds and bird-watching :: Cornell Lab of Ornithology: All About Birds

*We have had so much fun on this site listening to bird calls!

5. Info about birds, citizen science feeder watch projects and more :: Project Feederwatch

*This site has a really nice user interface that is easy to navigate and appealing for kids

* A friend recently pointed out this great Homeschooler’s Guide to Project Feeder Watch – so many great ideas here!

6. Another Cornell project – exploring urban birds through art and science :: Celebrate Urban Birds

7. Bird education site featuring a fun bird of the month section :: Wild Birds Unlimited

February 10, 2014
Coconut Oil Bird Feeders

We’re crafting some bird-watching goodness over here, in preparation for The Great Backyard Bird Count, starting on February 14th.

The kids have been working hard on Woodworking Wednesdays with their dad to design and make some wooden bird feeders for our yard. Plans to come. Sign up for our newsletter (top of this page) to be sure you don’t miss out on the bird feeder plans and other bird love.

With Valentine’s Day also creeping up on us, we thought we’d make something sweet for our feathery friends.

Suet bird feeders have been on our to-do list for a while. Since we generally don’t have suet lying around, I decided to use coconut oil (not our really pure one, but a slightly refined version). A lot of the recipes that we found included things like corn syrup and we really just wanted to keep it simple for our feathery friends.

** Parents of little ones with a peanut allergies (or those crafting with children who aren’t your own and might have an allergy) please note that almost all the birdseed I looked at had peanuts or ‘may contain nuts or peanuts’ warnings.

Coconut Oil Birdseed Feeders

Ingredients + Materials

:: 2 cups coconut oil

:: 1. 5 cups black oil sunflower seed

:: 1/2 cup organic cracked corn

:: cookie cutters

:: spoon

:: tray

:: string

Directions

1. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.

2. Refrigerate mixture for 30-60 minutes to partially solidify the oil.

3. Stir the mixture and scoop into cookie cutters, smoothing out on top.

4. Place a pencil crayon, pencil, or stick in the feeder to create a hole that will be used to hang the feeder.

5. Set in the fridge for another hour before add the string and hanging outside.

This post was shared as a part of Thank Goodness It’s Monday at Nourishing Joy, Natural Living Monday at Natural Living Mama, Montessori Monday at Living Montessori Now, and Fat Tuesday at Real Food Forager, and Link&Learn at No Time for Flash Cards.

February 8, 2014
The Week in Photos

Having a rhythm to carry our weeks is the glue that keeps us together. We’re not strict about it, though we do try to follow along with it as much as possible. If it’s baking day and I find the kids completely engaged in playing house, I leave them to it. Play is the work of childhood, after all. We also usually have project time carved out in the afternoon on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays, yet this was a busy week and we all needed some down time to just be. And to cuddle on the couch, of course (see photo of two brothers who were found cuddled in a blanket)…

A few things we were up to this week:

:: Monday | Baking Day – We made a really tasty grain free bread, using this recipe.

:: Tuesday | Craft/Art Day – Our hands got a great exfoliation making felted balls for a valentine’s day craft – we actually had this craft out for most of the week, as it’s one that is good to do for a while and then come back to.

:: Wednesday | Woodworking – The morning was spent playing, cuddling on the couch, and making something wonderful with milk (part of a project you’ll see here soon). Then the afternoon is spent with Mike on Wednesdays – they are currently working on some self-designed bird feeders.

:: Thursday | Swimming – So, so much fun to go to swimming lessons when there are friends in the kids’ classes. Each of them has a friend or more in their class, which means I have a few there myself. To add to the fun, we enjoy lunch and a library visit with friends after swimming. There is a library in the same building as the pool, which is brilliant. The kids had a blast. Cohen and Breann each went to the desk to ask a question, and they carried our stacks of books to the front, along with my library card, and checked everything out for us. I think that’s why the librarian didn’t mention our late fines. Ahem. Often on Thursdays, the kids get dropped off at their grandparents’ place – a great little break for us all, and they have so much fun there reading, crafting, baking, watching shows (we don’t own a television), and sometimes going to the library, the park, or on other exciting adventures.

:: Friday | Herb Fairies – This week we met Cerulea, the Elder fairy. The kids are always excited to colour a new fairy page and learn about the fairy and his or her plant through the story that goes along with it. I usually read it aloud and we look at the illustrations together, but yesterday we listened to the audio story instead, while sipping elderflower, rose hip, and mint tea. After the story, the kids were super engaged in playing house. Cohen owned the puzzle-shop and was a wonderful puzzle-maker. Milo, a little boy, wanted a puzzle and so his mother, Breann, ordered one for him. She ran a restaurant where they sold all kinds of scrumptious foods, including calendula spray and calendula syrup. The puzzle-maker ate at the restaurant on his lunch hour. I had a great time sipping my own tea and flipping through the recipe book that I won (first time winning an online giveaway!) through Vintage Remedies, and listening to the kids’ story-line develop.

After the kids were satisfied with their play time, we also made some lovely Valentine’s Day gifts for our backyard birds! See the photos and instructions for making coconut oil or suet bird feeders here.

*For those who would want to know, the play kitchen we have is this one from Hape/Educo – we’ve had it for about five years now and it gets played with at least three days a week by our three youngest – ages 4, 7, and 10. It has become a cherished part of our home. Watch for a sale – ours was about $129 CDN.

Please note that we are a part of the Amazon associates program. If you visit Amazon.ca through a link on Tiny Peasant and make a purchase, our family will receive a small percentage of the sale. The products that I specifically recommend in blog posts are products that we love in our home – if they aren’t they are on my wish list and I will note that. Our bookshop (coming soon) has a mixture of tried and true, and wish list items. If you ever have any questions about a product we link to, please don’t hesitate to ask! Thank you for your support!

February 8, 2014
Maple Butter Calendula Popcorn

Well, we did intend to bake some sort of calendula muffin – different from last week’s – but the day sort of got away on us. It felt more like a lazy kind of day, anyway, and so a big bowl of popcorn suited us just fine. It had been a while since we’d had popcorn, as we hadn’t been going to the food co-op we’re a part of and were missing out on the organic popcorn they source.

So we ended up making calendula popcorn rather than calendula muffins. What goes with calendula? I sure didn’t know – but took a guess that almost anything paired with butter and maple syrup would be amazing. And it was. It might be a contender for the go-to of honey-butter-salt or honey-coconut oil-salt around here.

To make Maple Butter Calendula Popcorn, just pop a batch sized to suit your family, and then you’ll have to eyeball how much butter, maple syrup and calendula to add. Or you can try this:

:: 1/2 cup butter

:: 1/2 cup maple syrup

:: 1/2 cup dried calendula flowers

:: 1 big family sized bowl of popcorn

:: generous sprinkles of sea salt

This post has been shared as a part of Thank Goodness It’s Monday at Nourishing Joy, Fat Tuesday at Real Food Forager, Simple Lives Thursday at My Humble Kitchen, Fight Back Fridays at Food Renegade, Unprocessed Fridays at Girl Meets Nourishment, and Simply Natural Saturdays at the Pistachio Project.

February 2, 2014