Add a little touch of SPRING to your winter

Purchase some inexpensive gloves at your local department store

Rummage through your yarn stash, and

using a large tapestry needle sew simple embroidery stitches on the cuff.

Only sew through one layer of the cuff except on the outer edge.

I used the button hole stitch for the edges.

  A DAISY stitch for the flower and french knots (wrapping 3 times for each stitch).

Add a hand spun, knitted fingerless glove over the top and you are sure to be toasty and warm while out doing chores.  I will post a pattern for the gloves and hat in a following post.

Hope everyone is enjoying the Holiday Season.
And I wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Our Family Christmas Traditions

   It's the most wonderful time of the year. 

This year, however instead of getting together and sharing all our family traditions:

* making ginger bread cookies to hang on the sagebrush tree

find a recipe here

* spending many evenings together creating one of a kind tree ornaments

( angels made from corn husks unearthed from the compost pile)

* putting on our snow boots, grabbing a hand-saw and ax,

going out the back door to chop down a big ole
  sagebrush for our tree
more pictures here

This family tradition began one year when the snow was very deep
and going into the mountains after a tree was impossible,
But I knew just what to do,
stepping out the back door we cut down a large, beautiful sagebrush.
We have had a sagebrush tree for the past 10 years or so.

Christmas 2010

* purchasing gifts for less fortunate neighbors and then trying to deliver

them without being caught

*having our Christmas night "slumber party" on the floor of the "little red house"

this tradition came about from the many years my kids slept on the floor in our little one bedroom

600 square foot house. 

Well this year is going to be a little different

My kids are strung far and wide,

Georgia

Virginia

Texas

but traditions are worth hanging on to.
I made gingerbread cookies and sent them to the boys.
We will walk out the back door (of our rented house up north)
 tonight and cut down a sagebrush for our tree,
decorating it with hand made ornaments from years past.
Sadly, we will not be spending Christmas this year down on the farm
 at the "Little Red House",
surrounded by loved ones.
That is why family traditions are so important.
No matter where you are and how far apart you my be,
 your tradition's will bring you together.

A Storage Idea

Here is a great idea for storing your fruits and vegetables over the winter.  Simply move an old dresser into a cold room of your house and use the drawers for keeping items fresh until needed.  This old child's armour sits on my back porch/laundry room just off the kitchen where it stays nice and cold all winter long.  I would suggest separate dressers for fruit and another for vegetables, but if room is not available just keep the veges and fruit separated in different drawers.

My daughters childhood dresser serves as storage for fresh fruits and vegetables

Line the drawers with a cardboard box or newspapers

Note:  I nailed a board securely underneath the bottom of the dresser to discourage mice from getting into the produce.

Tea with Trudy

One of my favorite things to do over the Holiday season is to visit my sister and spend an evening in her beautiful glass green-house.  We concoct our own specialty tea using fresh herbs picked from the potted herbs growing around us, using water heated in a kettle on the wood burning stove, a large variety of dried flowers and herbs kept in crystal jars, and sweetened with organic honey and cream.  Our husbands talk building construction, mechanics and all things manly.  We visit about children, gardens, plants and organic growing.

 more pictures and information about this gorgeous, plant filled glass green-house

TRUDY'S WINTER PARADISE 

back to REST

Hope everyone had a wonderful THANKSGIVING, filled with gratitude for all your blessings, good food, great company and time with family and loved ones.  We spent the holiday with my kids and managed to accomplish quite a bit.  My married kids know you had better bring your "work clothes"  when they come for a visit because there is always a work project going on.  The wood pile was a priority and after a long day of cutting, splitting, hauling and stacking in the wood shed, I think we will make it through the winter.  Projects at the farm included:  finish laying the rock in the sun room, lining the grow boxes with newly purchased galvanized sheet metal, cutting glass panels for the exterior windows, draining and bringing in all the hoses throughout the gardens.  Tearing out wire fences and digging out the metal T-Posts so we can plant a lawn in front of the Airstream this spring.  Watering the 30 newly trans-planted trees one last time so they won't winter kill, and we did find a little time to go skeet shooting down on the pond bank out in the west 40.  After a long 7 hour drive back to Roosevelt, I commented to my husband that it was too bad he had to go back to work the next day.  He smiled a tired, worn out smile and replied.

  "Yes, I get to go back to REST tomorrow!"