seems my baby is becoming a little girl

Today, Claire is 18 months old.

I am starting to accept that she is definitely more little girl than baby these days.

In both very fun (the constant chatting, problem solving and exploring, the increasing physical abilities..) and not so fun (testing us regularly (knowingly, I'm quite sure), whining and, um, biting) she is growing into her own little person and showing us that she definitely knows how to exercise her will and intends to keep us on our toes.

Oh Claire, we are on our toes all right.

Seems she is somehow both more independent than ever and more needy than ever these days.  How exactly can that be?  Hmmmm.  Well, she wants to do everything on her own, but when she's not doing something she wants to be "up! up! uu-uuuup!".

Or she wants papa to read her a "book! book! boo-oooook!!" (we love reading with her, believe me- we do it all day long. we just want her to learn to ask instead of order, ya know?)

Quite demanding, this one.  We need to get on the pleases and thank-yous.  When we remind her to say "more, please" or "book, please" or "milk, please" she will often get a big goofy (charming is what she's going for, I think) grin and kind of hug herself by bringing her little hands right up under her chin.  Either she thinks that is how to say please, or she has simply realized that she looks so darn cute doing it that I'm probably going to give her whatever it was she was wanting.

Plus a cookie or a kiss or an extra squeeze just because she's so adorable.

Man, she's got my number.

Anyway, I was talking about how she is growing up.  Quickly, of course.  Just like everyone tells you it will happen.  And yet also not so quickly.  Overall, yes- I am amazed sometimes thinking that I've been a mama for a year and a half now already.  But when I take it bit by bit and look back at all we've grown through and experienced with her..... well then sometimes it seems like it's been years and years.

Happy half-birthday baby girl.  We are so glad you are here with us.  Even when you are demanding and a bit of a stinker.

a sad day

There was a fire in Asheville today.  A four-alarm fire, which I'm learning can mean different things in different places but suffice it to say it was big enough and lasted long enough that nearly all of the city's trucks and some from other departments within the county were there.

One firefighter, a captain who had been with the department for 13 years, lost his life. He leaves behind a wife and three children.

Several others were injured.  Mike went in to help and ended up on the truck that was the first to respond (with him coming on board a little ways into things) so he had to stay until everything was under control.  Somewhat settled.

I am so, so, so grateful that he is okay.

And I am so saddened by the loss of one of his fellow firefighters, and unsettled by all of the injuries.

They really put things into a different perspective, tragedies.

From a certain point of view, it would have appeared to have been a fire that was fairly manageable.  And it was certainly being managed by a very professional and well trained department.  And still.... things happen.  Things go wrong.  Oxygen runs out, masks are taken off, smoke is inhaled.  There are checks in place to keep bad things from happening, but life doesn't always run down the checklists to make sure it's flowing just the way our lists and training and preparations say it should. 

And then we are faced with very real reminders that all we have is right now.

And so off I go, to curl up next to my littlest love, while thinking of my other, who I hope is resting and  somewhat settled.  And sending loads of love and prayers to so many others.

out and about: Weaverville

Old buildings from the late 1700s, a tasty lunch, delicious baked goods and some lovely pottery, all enjoyed in good company.  That's nice.  

I had been meaning to explore Weaverville (along with a few other nearby towns I hope to explore soon) for quite a while and we finally made it out there during a recent visit from my good friend, Kelly.  

Our first stop was the Vance Birthplace Historic Site, the pioneer farmstead home of a North Carolina governor and Confederate officer, Zebulon Vance.  Many of the furnishings are original to the home and time period, and a fair amount of the main structure is original as well.  We took a short tour and then wandered around a bit, mostly staring open-mouthed at the huge kitchen and it's enormous original fireplace and chimney.  

There are times (quite often, really) that I find myself wishing I lived back then.  Of course it's easy to look back and romanticize it all and think they were "simpler times", but of course that's all relative.  Simpler in ways, sure.  Much more challenging and complicated in others though, no doubt.  But standing in that kitchen, I didn't think I'd mind it all that much.  (you know, especially if I could pick and choose say a half dozen or so modern conveniences to take back in time with me....)  Being in places like that I often feel connected through time to the strangers that lived and worked in them so many years ago.  I was especially struck by that feeling as I looked into the water at the spring house and saw my reflection. I wondered how many people, how many women, had done the same thing over the years, the centuries.... wondered what they saw.  What they felt.  Endured.  

Some photos from the site:

just a tiny corner of the original fireplace, complete with 2 warming ovens and a 2 1/2 story chimney

a queen box, used in beekeeping

window at the main house

steps up to servant's quarters

window at the spring house

playing peek-a-boo

After leaving the Vance Birthplace, we drove into downtown Weaverville and had lunch at Blue Mountain Pizza.  We enjoyed pizza and roasted red pepper soup and some delicious garlic knots.  Nothing fancy, but definitely tasty.  Then we headed to Mangum Pottery and browsed around a bit.  I eyed a certain mug for a while then ultimately decided that I first needed to pare down my existing mug collection before adding "the perfect" one to the bunch.

Our next stop was the Well-Bred Bakery and Cafe.  Holy cow.  This place was fabulous!  Had my belly not been full of pizza and soup and garlic knots I'd have tried some of their quiche or homemade salads or sandwiches.  Another day.  I did not let my full belly deter me from bringing some deliciousness home for later, however, and Kelly and I placed quite the order for baked goods to-go.  Together we left the bakery with a piece of key lime pie (yum), a slice of blackberry almond cake (not great, actually), huge ginger molasses (wow!) and oatmeal cookies, a mini tea cake, mini mountain eclair, a piece of shortbread and an apple phyllo pastry (how can you go wrong with that?).  I know, it sounds like a truly absurd amount of baked goods.  But remember, there were 3 of us adults, plus Claire.  It took us a few days to eat it all though, and I made a mental note about only purchasing as many baked goods as I could eat in a day or so, since freshness goes a long way in the world of cake and such.

But you know, sometimes it's damn fun to order with abandon at the bakery.

That, and I just love good bakeries.  What's not to love, really?

By the way, (since we're talking about baked goods) this week we celebrated my father's 62nd birthday and while Mike was in charge of dinner, (bacon butter scallops (fresh from the Outer Banks) and spinach over garlic and oil fettucine.  Wow.)  I took care of dessert.  My pop's request?  Something with "lots of whipped cream".  Hmm.  A pie maybe.  Yep, a pie.  One that goes well with seafood...... and so I tried my hand at key lime pie and was most pleasantly surprised by how easy it is.  Homemade graham cracker crust (graham crackers, pinch of salt, maple syrup and butter), key lime juice, a few egg yolks, some sweetened condensed milk (ahem) and homemade whipped cream (lots) and ta-da!  Key lime pie.  I failed to realize in time that the 3 leftover egg whites would have made the perfect meringue layer between the custard and whipped cream, but that's alright.  There's always next time.  Which will be pretty soon I think, because I can't let the rest of the key lime juice just sit there.  And I'm sure something like lime juice would spoil very, very quickly if not eaten within a week or so, right?  Right.


And so now back to the mention of wanting to go back in time to live in another era if only I could have a few modern conveniences with me.  I feel like the choosing would be pretty tricky.  There's taking into account that many of our modern conveniences are powered via means that wouldn't have been in place back then, making them useless if somehow transported along with me back in time 2 or 3 centuries..... Hmmm.  The more I think about it, the more my head spins.

And so now I'm wondering.... what would I bring?

What would you bring?

blueberry picking, take 2

A recent visit from my mother-in-law reminded just how much I miss picking blueberries up in New Jersey.  She was telling me about how she and my sister-in-law had picked 30 (or was it 50?) pounds of berries for around $1.25 or so a pound and as I sat there listening I wondered how many pounds we'd need to pick to make the drive worthwhile.  (it's only 650 miles after all)

New Jersey is one of the largest blueberry producing states and the Pine Barrens region of the state is perfect for growing the tasty blues.  It's not hard to find berries for around $1/pound for conventional and $2/pound for organic (which we'd prefer, especially seeing as how commercial conventional blueberries have now landed on the "dirty dozen" list and we have a little person who LOVES her some berries something fierce).  Of course we have several farms around here, but picking can be quite hit or miss depending on how many folks have been out and the prices, for the most part, are around $3.50 to $4 a pound.  Not that that's terrible.  But you see, I had dreams of LOTS of berries.  LOTS of jam, LOTS of frozen berries for future pancakes and muffins.  And I was hoping to fulfill that dream without LOTS of money being spent.

Enter this:

Located in Old Fort, NC.  A sweet older couple has many (close to 100? maybe a couple hundred?) mature blueberry bushes planted on the hillside in front of their house and the above sign tells you what you need to know.  Unsure of what the answer would be, I asked the friendly man if he sprayed his berries much and he told me that he never, ever sprays anything on them.  Perfect.  I don't care about spots on my apples, leave me the birds and the bees.  Such wise words.

Mike and I had actually picked here years ago and somehow had forgotten all about it.  Until I was recently doing lots of thinking about blueberries and then (because that's how it goes, right?) bumped into the woman who told me about the place years ago and got the directions and info from her again.  I am not going to forget about this place again, I assure you.  And the icing on the cake?  He expects to be open for picking for the next 6 weeks.  Now that's a lot of berries.

Mike did the math and figured that we ended up paying somewhere in the ballpark of $0.75 per pound.  Sweet.  Got berries?

We do.  About 3 gallons so far.  I think there's more to come.

beach camping: hot, sticky, wonderful

Oh, Mama, it's hot here......

What a whirlwind trip little Claire and I took last week!  I am very (very very) proud to say that I did indeed get up at 4am and that we were on the road by 4:40am.  I quietly took Claire out of bed and got her into her car seat with ease.  She sat up a little and rubbed her eyes, looking dazed, then grabbed her doll and cuddled it up to her face and fell back to sleep.  I was one relieved and proud mama.  Most definitely the way we will be doing long road trips from here on out.  (I bet a lot of you more seasoned mamas already know all this, huh?)  Anywho, she slept for the first three hours of our trip and then we hung out at a rest stop near Durham and ate yogurt while watching the trucks on the highway.  After mounting back up I was happy to call on my borrowed DVD player and it kept Claire quite happy for hours as she watched a sweet little DVD called "That Baby".  We only made one other stop for her to stretch her legs and before I knew it we were at the coast.  And by lunch time!  We set up camp (and I started thinking that perhaps I really should have brought the enormous car-camping tent instead of the tiny MSR backpacking tent.....) then headed to the NC Aquarium in Manteo (and also to Ace Hardware to pick up extra long tent stakes so my little tent wouldn't blow away in the wind), where I figured she could fall asleep in her backpack in the air conditioning (it was 95 degrees outside and we had little shade at the otherwise lovely Park Service campground at Oregon Inlet) and I could sit around and read and watch the fish as she snoozed.  When we arrived, the big sign stating "Aquarium free today- no air conditioning" was a little bit of a downer but we (she) ran around looking at the fish and turtles for a while and then she ended up falling asleep in the car on the way back to the campground.  I took the opportunity to drive around Manteo a bit and stumbled upon the very cute and historic waterfront district that I hope to explore a bit more this fall when we head back out to the Outer Banks for our Ocracoke vacation.

bouncing up and down on an old produce scale
(when she stood still it read 24 pounds, not 35!)

scene from a sweet little town we drove through on our way

old buildings in Manteo

old boat at the Manteo Maritime Museum

Back at the campground I set up our shade tent and was excited to see Heather walking up to the campsite.  She had just done a bit of writing for her blog, The Botanical Hiker, and enjoyed a cold beverage at the Oregon Inlet Marina across Highway 12 from the campground.  It had been a couple months since I had seen her and here she was, only 14 miles away from completing the Mountains-to-Sea trail.  My drive out to the Outer Banks was about 450 miles, but the trail had zig-zagged her across the state for a grand total of over 900 miles!

We relaxed a bit, enjoyed the beach in the evening, and then fought the mosquitoes as we prepared to hunker down in our tents for the night.  It was a hot night and Claire and I slept very little, but still, it was fun to be having a little adventure with her.  Of course taking a 17 month old camping on the beach in the middle of a very hot July isn't the most practical thing and was full of several challenges, but we still made it work with as little grumbling as possible. (Though be sure, there was definitely some grumbling and crankiness, from both she and I)

The following day went a bit more smoothly, with her napping on my chest in her carrier as I walked on the beach for an hour or so in the morning, followed by a little exploring and then us meeting up with Heather at Jockey's Ridge State Park to join her as she finished the last 1/2 mile or so of the trail.  Jockey's Ridge State Park is where you go in the Outer Banks if you'd like to go hang-gliding.  There are a few huge sand dunes (now around 100 feet, but ever-shifting) that seemingly supply the perfect conditions and wind for the sport.  It looks a little like something out of Star Wars, when they are cruising around in the desert.  It's like nothing I've ever seen.  And that sand is HOT, about 25-30 degrees above the air temperature, which, on the day we were out there was close to 100 degrees.  I strapped Claire onto my back and off we went up into the dunes under the bright summer sun.  I was shocked that she fell asleep out there, hot as it was, and honestly was a little nervous about having her out there for long because of the heat.  Turned out I didn't have to worry too much because a friendly park ranger who Heather had been in contact with via email as she neared the end of the trail ended up driving a little ATV out onto the dunes to take pictures of Heather as she finished and to bring us strawberry slushies.  And then she offered to give us a ride back down.  Which we most gladly accepted.  Now, a 1/2 mile hike is nothing, but a 1/2 mile in deep HOT sand on a July day..... well, that's no fun.  I held onto Claire tightly as the ranger zoomed down the dunes (a little quick, I thought... but perhaps I'm just getting old and boring.  And protective.  There is that.) and before we knew it we were back at the air conditioned visitor's center where all the rangers congratulated Heather on being one of a handful (less than 30!) of people who have completed the entire trail, and to ask many many questions about her experiences.

We had a delicious lunch at Tortuga's Lie in Nag's Head, a great little place that I have always enjoyed.  The blackened tuna sandwich that I ate was wonderful- very fresh with a watermelon-basil salsa, goat cheese, ripe tomato and lettuce.  Sounds like an odd combination perhaps, but it was amazing!  They also make their own chips and salsa and it is all great.  I highly recommend stopping there if you're ever in Nag's Head.

We then returned to camp and had a lazy afternoon followed by another cool evening on the beach and a bit less trouble with the mosquitoes before bed.  We all slept much better that second night, but poor Claire woke up with about 2 dozen bites on her leg where she'd slept with it up against the tent netting.

how she LOVED the water!

our lil' home away from home

no more sleeping up against the tent netting!

passed out after night two

We were on our way by 8am, with a quick stop at a coffee shop in Manteo and another in Columbia so I could pick up some seafood to take home.  We had another uneventful drive, with my little lady passed out for a solid 3 1/2 hours in the back (looking like she was surrendering to the AC and familiarity of being in her car seat) and were home by early evening.

total Savasana

I learned a lot about beach camping with a little one, for sure.  I will definitely take the enormous tent next time, will not ever do it again in the middle of July (unless of course I promise another friend that I'll pick them up) and will most certainly purchase a sunshade for the beach so that we can take advantage of the cooler waterside temperatures and breeze during the hottest part of the day.

All that aside, it was still a sweet little adventure.  I found myself awake that second night, watching Claire in the moonlight as she slept, grateful for the the cool ocean breeze, and feeling very blessed and content.

Mama and Claire (prepare to) hit the road~

In a nice way, that is.

A while back I mentioned a good friend of mine that was hiking the Mountains-to-Sea trail in it's entirety.  (Which means, basically, that she is walking clear across the state of North Carolina.  It's a pretty big state. A long, long, long walk.)  Before she left, I offered to be her ride home.  Now the time has come.

I spoke with her a few days ago when she was relaxing a bit on beautiful Ocracoke Island in the Outer Banks, and we made plans for Claire and I to come out and get her this week.  She'll finish the hike Wednesday or Thursday and my plan is to leave around 4am Wednesday morning in order to arrive at the Park Service Campground early Wednesday afternoon, and then spend Thursday exploring the coast with Claire before turning back around and driving home Friday morning.  It's an 8 hour drive, so the day of rest and relaxation will be nice.  I'm a tad anxious about the long drive with just (a still backwards-facing) Claire and I, and hoping that the obscenely early start to our trip will enable her to snooze soundly through lots and lots of miles before our first of many anticipated stops.  I've got plans to pick up some special snacks and I am also borrowing a portable DVD player from a friend and hoping that there is some magic in that, as well.

I'm generally not a 4am riser.  Not even close.  So there's that.  That, and Mike won't be getting home from the fire department until 8am on Wednesday morning so he won't be there to help nudge me out of bed and motivate me to hit the road.  But I can do it.  Really.

So that's the plan.  To be packed and ready to go by tomorrow afternoon, hit the hay with Claire tomorrow night, wake up disgustingly early Wednesday morn and hit the button on the coffee pot.  Let it do it's thing while I pack the cooler and attempt to wake up.  Gently carry a sleepy babe to the car and hope to get her into her car seat without putting her into a state of being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and off we'll go.  Sounds pretty easy.  Right?




I'll be back at the end of the week(ish) to share photos and stories from our little adventure.

visiting, reading, eating~

Yesterday I picked a dear friend up from the airport for a nice long visit with us and I intend to spend most of my time over the next several days visiting, reading, and sharing delicious meals with loved ones.

Chana masala, fresh veggies from the garden, sesame noodles, quiche with fresh eggs, yummy local beer and coffee roasted right down the road.......  Maybe I need to start eating 'for company' regularly.  Not much more effort or cost, just a bit of thought involved.  Yes, I think that would be nice.  Will start that right away.

in my reading pile:

wild places

"People need wild places.  Whether or not we think we do, we do.  We need to be able to taste grace and know once again that we desire it.  We need to experience a landscape that is timeless, whose agenda moves at the pace of speciation and glaciers.  To be surrounded by a singing, mating, howling commotion of other species, all of which love their lives as much as we do ours, and none of which could possibly care less about our economic status or our running day calendar.  Wildness puts us in our place.  It reminds us that our plans are small and somewhat absurd.  It reminds us why, in those cases in which our plans might influence many future generations, we ought to choose carefully.  Looking out on a clean plank of planet earth, we can get shaken right down to the bone by the bronze-eyed possibility of lives that are not our own."


Barbara Kingsolver, from "Small Wonders"



Oh, I do so love me some Barbara Kingsolver.

I find that nothing quite brings me back to center like getting out there.  Some days it's as simple as getting my hands in the dirt in the garden.  Other days it requires more.  A long hike maybe, or a good long while spent staring at and listening to moving water.

And a waterfall?  Forget about it.  That's my church.

I didn't do anything amazing outdoors today.  I tended to the garden and took Claire to a park with a creek to play with some friends.  Though I suppose even these things, in some way, are amazing.  "Nature" and "wild places" really can mean so many different things and take on so many different faces.  I am quite grateful for my many varied encounters with wild places.

tid bits and chit chat

Seeing as how this blog gets updated more than either my personal journal (which I'm not even sure I could locate right now) or Claire's baby book, I feel the need to jot down what she's up to these days so I can fill in her lovely Nikki McClure baby book soon.  I kept up with it pretty well until she was about 12 or 13 months and now I go back every couple months and fill it in.

And so, following are some little bits and pieces of Claire.  Such as these, the words and phrases she is using regularly these days:

bye bye baby
boo boo
I see you (she says it clear as day instead of 'peek-a-boo', and really, it makes a lot more sense, doesn't it?)
peacock ("gee gock", which now seems to be used for most birds)
cheese ("geesh")
rock
truck ("shuck")
mama (now shouted when she can't locate me, "ma-MA"!)
papa
book
bee
drink ("jink")
more please (she does the sign for more and says "oh-peash")
big
hello/hi
thank you ("sank ew")
blueberries ("boo bayays")
bear ("bey-uh")
eye

I'm sure there are more, but those are the ones we hear almost daily.  Of course she is also parroting us repeatedly throughout the day and that has been a lot of fun and has us being a bit more mindful about what we say.  Not a bad thing.



and these, some random tid-bits:

-she loves putting shoes on and taking them off
-she loves dancing, spinning and doing somersaults
-she is most definitely Miss Independent, from getting into her chair by herself, hiking on her own (well, with her own feet anyway), drinking from a glass by herself and just about everything else
-she is head over heels for her 'bop-pop' (this is how "papa" comes out sometimes) these days, and it is very clearly a mutual thing
-she could probably eat her weight in berries
-she needs a little time to warm up in most situations, but once she is comfortable she dives right in
-she can climb like nobody's business (this can be a little bit scary)
-she really enjoys finding little nooks and going behind/under things
-books are still, no question, her favorite things

Oh, we are having fun these days.  Many friends told me how this stage, between 1 and 2 years, but especially around 18 months, was one of their very favorite stages with their children and I always wondered how and why.  Now that I'm in it, I totally get it.  Language explosions, developing personality, increasing physical ability....... wow.


*7/15/11 update:
seems I forgot a few notable words and phrases, and she has added so many in these last few days...


dog
cow
duck
block
scissors 
'Dude' (our neighbor's dog)
'Ziggy' (our cat)
ball
bubble
hot
bag

homemade ~ laundry soap and jam

I've been wanting to make my own laundry soap for quite some time and now, having done it and seen how quick and easy it is, I'm not sure why it took me so long.  There are lots of recipes out there, for both powder and liquid, but I kept it simple.  I followed a recipe shared in the tutorials page of Amanda Blake Soule's blog, Soulemama.  

It goes a little something like this:

2 cups finely grated castile soap (1 bar of Bronner's did the trick for me)

1 cup borax

1 cup washing soda

1 cup baking soda

*essential oil, if desired (I did, so I added in 12 drops of lavender oil which, it turns out, wasn't really enough to pass the scent onto the clothes, just the soap)

-mix it all together in a big bowl and store in a jar with a tight fitting lid

-this recipe makes 5 cups or 40 regular-sized loads using 1/8 cup per load (which is the same as 2 TB if, like me, you lack a 1/8 measuring cup)  If, like me, you also have a very no-frills washer with only "small" and "extra large" load settings (which I find quite odd), use 1/4 cup (4 TB) for an extra large load.

And now~ jam.  With all of those blueberries sitting around after our little picking adventure last week, we simply had to make jam.  And really, blueberry jam happens to be my favorite.  It had been a long time, maybe 3 or 4 years, since I canned anything.  These last few years I have mostly made small batches of apple sauce and apple butters and have frozen a little tomato sauce, but I think now I may be hooked.  My plan is to pick A LOT of blueberries over the next few weeks and get together plenty of jam for us and some to give away around the holidays. And then after another month or so, it will be time for apple butter and salsa.  Mmmmmmmm.  (So, there it is.  Don't be surprised if you get blueberry jam for Christmas this year, friends.)

I didn't have a go-to recipe for jam, and wasn't digging the ones I found that called for more sugar than fruit (seriously?!), so I opted to use a no/low sugar pectin made by Ball and simply followed the directions on the package.  (I figured they probably knew what they were talking about, being in the business and all.)  Here's what I ended up using:

6 cups blueberries (to yield 4 cups of prepared/mashed fruit)
1 cup organic unsweetened apple juice
1 package Ball no-sugar-needed pectin
1 3/4 cups sugar (optional, though I found the jam to be a bit too tart before adding it)

*I brought all of the ingredients to a boil and held it there for the specified time before filling the sterilized jars with it and processing them in a boiling-water canner.  This made 5 1/2 8oz. jars, they sealed nicely and that 1/2 jar was eaten up in no time.

This made a yummy and not overly sweet jam, still with a little bit of blueberry 'tartness' but sweet enough to please Mike, who has a pretty strong (raging?) sweet tooth.  Claire loves it mixed in with her oatmeal and cottage cheese.

Mmmmmmmm.  That is my idea of delicious.  Toasted sourdough with butter and fresh blueberry jam, along with a cup of good strong coffee.

Oh I can't wait to go picking again~

And a big thanks again to my lovely neighbor, Grace, who came and hung out with Claire after she decided to wake up from her nap just as I was getting things boiling and couldn't really give her all the attention she wanted.......  I called Grace thinking I could get an "emergency popsicle" from her to keep Claire happy as I finished making the jam and instead she came over and played with her.  In the end, I was able to get the jam made and the laundry soap made all in one day~ go team!

a peek inside the hive

We noticed a lot of activity around the hive Friday afternoon and, novice beekeepers that we are, we weren't quite sure what to make of it.  When we picked up our bees early last week we were advised to give them several days to get acclimated to their new home before opening up the hive and adding the first super. (The supers are the boxes added on above the main hive body to give the bees the space they need to continue producing and storing honey.  The first super gets left on for the bees to survive on over the winter,  and we hope to harvest some honey for ourselves from any that are filled beyond that.)

We had already given them 5 days and had no idea what things were looking like on the inside.  Knowing that they'd had some time to fill the hive body before we brought them home, we were crossing our fingers that it wasn't already too full, leading them to swarm, and that we weren't too late in getting the first super on.  We were relieved to read several accounts of people noticing the kind of activity we were seeing on hot summer days, but still, we wanted to be sure.

Mike put on the veil, gloves and long sleeves, watched a video on how to build a fire in the smoker, grabbed the hive tool and a feather and headed out to investigate.

Turned out they were just fine and still had plenty of room in there.  I suppose they were just hot or orienting themselves to their new surroundings a bit more.  Mike scraped away some honeycomb from the top of the frames to discourage them from continuing to build there, checked in to see how things looked (pretty good with the exception of a couple pesky small hive beetle larvae, we'll have to get some traps), added the first super and then let them be.

We had a little nibble of honeycomb from what was scraped off the top~ mmmmmmmm good!

weekend thrifting

It's been a while since I shared photos from one of my favorite past times.... hunting for good deals at yard sales and thrift stores (and in other people's trash, of course).  It could be that I just wasn't doing as much looking for a while because we've been trying hard to keep things going out of the house and not coming into the house.  But there are certain things that I will happily bring in; books (especially children's books and good reference books and cookbooks), clothing and shoes for this growing girl (because who likes to spend $35 on baby shoes and $20 for a girl's dress that's going to get covered in mud and berries almost instantly? Not me), kitchen stuff and art/craft supplies (though I am learning, quite well, to not bring too many of either of those things home).

This Saturday we took the day off from the market for a few reasons.  Mostly, because Mike was working and I wasn't going to have any back up with Claire and figured that might be trickier than I wanted to find out.  Also because it's been pretty slow going at the market the last two weeks and I was feeling like a break.  I think the thing about selling art/crafts at a tailgate market is that you are selling something that doesn't get used up quickly or consumed (like all the yummy produce and cheese and breads do) and so people only need so much of it.  Especially if it's a market that is full of regulars (which I really do love about it) and is only 3 hours long.  Even so, I do so love the market experience and look forward to returning next week.

One of the nicest things about taking Saturday off was being able to go to a couple yard sales.  I must say that driving to the market early every Saturday morning and having to pass by many sales on the way makes me feel a little torn sometimes.  Mike, on the other hand, thinks it is a wonderful thing that the market keeps me away from yard sales.  I think he's afraid of me bringing home another chair like this one (which, um, is still sitting in our back yard in the same condition, if not worse for wear, than I brought it home in...).  But anyway~ here are some of my recent finds from this weekend's yard sales and a couple trips to our local thrift stores over the past few weeks.

Here's a photo of all of Claire's goodies:

books (.50 each), a mirror for her room ($3), a reusable snack/sandwich wrap (FREE), two adorable puppets (.50 each), a framed bird picture (.50), wooden heart-shaped stool (FREE), wooden truck with removable blocks ($2), wooden pounding board (.25), shoes for the fall ($1) and a small wooden train (.50) grand total= $9.75

adorable hand painted squirrel canvas, $1 at a yard sale

these cuties deserved a close-up

books are her very favorite things, and this Blackberry Mouse book is very sweet

sweet 'lil truck for my truck loving lass 

 I picked up a few things for myself too, of course:

clear glass pitcher (with a little crack) .25, blue glass crock .25, bag of wreaths $1, string market bag .25

a ton of wonderful rubber stamps (sitting in a nice sturdy bread pan, .50) ! $2 for the letter set and .50 each for the rest

a pair of jeans (SO hard for me to find the right jeans) $4.50, purple corduroy fabric .25, blue owl bandanna .25, green glass bottle .25, this wonderful Bird Songs book in great condition $1.50 (score!), and Mollie Katzen's The Enchanted Broccoli Forest cookbook, 50

Not too bad, right?  Certainly all items that will be read, worn, played with and used for quite some time!