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Our garden report isn’t very impressive this year, but I wanted to post about it at any rate, because it is our first year to have a garden, and I’m glad we at least made a start!

These pictures are from when we first put our garden in. It wasn’t until mid-June because we were waiting on completion of our chicken-tractor. (more about that in another post) When the destructive poultry were finally confined, it was so late in the season that we decided to buy plant starts to pair with the few plants I had already started from seed.

Earlier in the spring Jordan tilled a place in front of the house and we covered it over with cardboard (lots of cardboard!!) and wood chips. It sat for a few weeks before we were ready for planting -and it was wonderful! Planting was so fast and easy, and clean! The dirt underneath was soft and full of worms – I just made little holes in the cardboard with a spade, dug down enough to give the root ball space, then spread the dirt then chips evenly back when the plant was settled.

We planted tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, cantaloupe, watermelon, dill, artichoke, winter squash, and cucumber.

The squash and cucumber we planted underneath the rail fence to give the plants a nice place to climb.

So….here we are about 3 months later. We had quite a few casualties. The artichoke, dill, and zuchinni died fairly quickly. Even with daily watering, I think the little plants were just too vulnerable in the summer heat without established root systems.

The winter squash and cucumbers thrived for a while and got fairly big, but then just seemed to shrivel and die from the roots upward. I’ve been told that a pest that lives in the ground was responsible for that. Must figure out how to defend those types of plants before next year. Winter squash always did wonderfully when I lived in Texas, but it seems to have more enemies here in Tennessee!

I do definitely love the card-board and chips system. Even as a busy mom without very much extra time, I was still able to pretty easily keep weeds and grass at bay.

To learn more about using woodchips in the garden – watch the free online film Back to Eden.

So, here we are with our garden survivors, and two little munchkins. Marian and Alan love spending time in the garden. They will often ask to go out there while I am on the porch doing laundry to sit and eat cherry tomatoes. We’ve grown a good deal of delicious yellow ‘Sun Gold’ cherry tomatoes, as well as some bigger varieties of red.

We never have gotten our tomatoes staked up off the ground, but they seem to be thriving anyway. I think the chips are doing well at keeping them from being too damp on the ground.

The eggplants are doing well now, and have lots of blossoms. For 2 months they just barely hung on during the worst heat, and were also eaten down to nothing again and again by flea beetles. (another new pest to me – any tips on how to control or prevent them?) But after several weeks of cooler weather and rain, they sprang back to life and have tripled in size. The beetles are still there, but don’t seem to be harming the plants as much now. Maybe we will get some eggplants yet!

We’ve had several good cantaloupes! Our watermelon plant is still doing well, but so far every time a watermelon gets any where close to big enough to be ripe, it splits open. Apparently it’s been too rainy to be a good watermelon year.

Alan is quite the tomato lover. When they are headed to garden he shouts “May-mo!! MAY-MO!!” at the top of his lungs! Usually we don’t make it into the house with any of the tomatoes we have picked – they are all consumed on the spot.

I made the little overalls Alan is wearing from a charming and delightfully easy vintage pattern from the 50s. I made him two pair, and they have basically been his uniform this summer. I’m hoping to make some long, warm flannel ones for warm weather.

This dress I made earlier in the Spring. I saw a pretty floral printed king size pillowcase at Goodwill, and thought it would make a lovely little dress for Marian. I quite love how it turned out – there was enough material to make a very full skirt which is always so cute and fun for little girls.

I’ll sign off with this sweet shot of sibling love. They do fight a lot – but I’m so thankful that they also just adore each other.

Looking forward to continuing what’s left of our garden into the fall, with hopefully a better idea of what to prepare for next year. I’m hoping to get a much earlier start next spring and be perhaps a little more ready for the challenges of Tennessee gardening.

Last month we decided to attend a local small reenactment. There’s not really that much to the event, but we thought it would be fun to get the kids dressed up and see what they thought about it all. (and still be close enough to retreat home for naptime!)

As always….the event started out the night before with last-minute sewing… Marian was still able to squeeze into her last outfit, but Alan didn’t have anything. I had a little dress nearly done for him that I had been working on slowly for the last few months. (yes, boys wore dresses in the 19th century at least until after potty training was complete) It was quickly finished, but I also decided that if I didn’t have time to do anything else, I should at least make a couple of little sunbonnets to protect against sunburn, so those I stayed up working on late after the babies were sleeping.

These bonnets were made from a pattern I’ve used for adult sunbonnets before – one taken from a Godey’s Lady’s Magazine from 1857.

The day ended up being chilly, so hoods might have been more appropriate, but oh well! Marian and Alan looked quite darling all dressed up! Marian just loved having a “pettitote” to make her dress  “go round and round” better.

Alan in his little blue dress was just too adorable! I thought he wouldn’t like wearing that much fabric, but he really didn’t seem to notice. Jordan and I hadn’t worn our reenactment clothing in a while, so it was fun to be in character for a day!

Some one getting sleepy!

The battle, which took place in the streets of the small town, was pretty loud and close, so the kids and I took refuge in their Nana’s shop on main street where they could see and hear but not be too frightened. They had a grand time playing with her spinning wheels!

After the battle we returned home and let the kids have a long nap. By the time they woke up it was time to make the short drive back to town for the dance. We had a good time, got to dance quite a bit – there was a live military band, so that was lovely – but the best part was seeing how enthusiastically Marian and Alan danced with each other! It was a good ending to an enjoyable day…

I’ve been doing a bit more dress sewing lately. Mostly it’s been dresses for Marian, but I did actually finish one for myself (it’s only been in progress since last summer….sigh.) This is another experimental pattern in my ongoing study of house dresses adapted for modern use. (see the last one here)

This pattern is an authentic 1860’s bodice pattern, but instead of fitting it snugly over a corset as I normally would, I adapted it to fit more loosely to accommodate early pregnancy and post pregnancy bumps. 1860s bodices are well suited for this as they sit ever so slightly higher than the natural waistline. The buttons down the front also make the dress nursing friendly. At my current time of life I want to make all these things a consideration, because anything I make and like, I definitely want to be able to wear as frequently as possible! I’ve been so frustrated with much of my pre-marriage wardrobe being useless since pregnancy and nursing have happened, I certainly don’t want my handmade things to hang in the closet unused!

Since this was an experiment I used some scrap fabric I had – a piece of blue and white check fabric – and I actually didn’t have enough so I had to use another small scrap of similar blue and white check (you can see the subtle color difference) for the wide hem and the binding on the neck and sleeves. I also added a bit of lace to the hem to ease the visual transition. The dress has a ‘low lining’ (another handy technique learned from the super smart 19th century seamstresses) which means the lining has a lower neckline than the dress. You can see the faint line of the lining in the above picture. This means there is less fabric around the neck and shoulders, thus making the dress quite a bit more cool and breathable for warm weather. The skirt is a simple rectangular gathered skirt, quite full, but not nearly as full as a true 1860s skirt would be, and shorter.

I really love wearing this dress! It’s very comfortable for all sorts of housework, and it’s perfect for aprons! Marian’s dresses lately have been all upcycled thrifted pieces. Mostly men’s shirts turned into button front dresses. The one she is wearing in these pictures was an xlarge men’s shirt which appeared to be brand new in a beautiful indigo linen! She always checks to make sure her dresses go ’round and round’, and this one seems to pass the test. I hope to do a post soon showing more of her upcycled shirt dresses.

I ran out of the blue linen shirt material just short of finishing the neckline, so it’s finished with a tiny piece of my left over blue check dress fabric. Which doesn’t bother her – she loves for us to ‘match’!

I have so many more ideas about practical everyday house dress that I want to experiment with – modern smock patterns to 1940s reproductions, and more Victorian inspired ones…. but it is very slow progress right now. Alan is walking now, and in the process of potty training so I spend most of my time chasing kids instead of sewing….which is as it should be!

I thought about naming this post “Eggs, eggs, and more eggs”. But I didn’t. It would have been appropriate, though – as you shall see shortly.

When we returned from our 3-week Texas trip that ended with brother #2 getting married, (yay!) we were glad to see that spring hadn’t sprung yet on the homestead. We didn’t want to miss any of it! Over the past few weeks it has been creeping in bit by bit, and we’ve been soaking in every drop.

One of the first things we found out when we returned, were that our chickens were laying – a lot.

Marian has been so excited about gathering eggs! In fact, we do it at least twice a day. Both kids will get in the stroller and I will push them around to the various nests we have discovered to see if there are any new-laid additions. We also have one ‘mommy chicken’ as Marian calls her, who is sitting on about 20 eggs. So, we shall see if any of them hatch in the next couple of weeks….

In the meantime, I’ve been trying to use a lot of eggs in cooking, which thankfully isn’t hard to do.

This is a blueberry clafoutis. It’s basically a cross between a cake and a custard, and its easy and scrumptious.   Get the recipe here.

Here’s Marian and Alan heading off with Dad on a little errand to a neighbor’s house. They love getting their ‘Daddy-time’.

The day after we got back, Jordan plowed us up a garden spot. Since then we have been working on covering it with flattened cardboard boxes and a thick layer of wood chips. I’m really excited to try the mulch gardening method! I have a few seeds started in jars. Before I can transplant, we are going to have to come up with some kind of fencing for the garden, as the chickens are relentless foragers. Which is good…just not for a garden.

Picking dandelion greens early one morning. These were sauteed with bacon for breakfast. So delicious!

A breezy day just perfect for freshening up some bedding!

Marian gathering eggs very carefully. She has broken a couple, but she is learning quickly that you have to be gentle.

If you want to try a crazy good pie crust recipe that is incredibly rich – do try this one. It includes eggs of course. (though I left out the sugar, and didn’t use quite so much butter)

These two pies were egg/sausage/kale/gouda, and blueberry.

The woods. I love searching for my beloved little violets.

So, there you have it, that’s what our spring looks like so far. I’ll end with a picture of…you guessed it! Fresh eggs.

I’m reading again.

I can’t believe I ever stopped, but I did. I hardly read anything (maybe completed one book on my own, and read one out loud to Jordan?) in the first two and  a half years of marriage. That’s sad.

Before I got married I used to read so many books I would run out of ‘new’ things to read at home. (and we had a lot of books in our house!)

Then, after the wedding all my books were packed up and things were busy, especially after one then two babies arrived. I obviously just ‘didn’t have time for reading’.

Well, when all my books were finally unpacked and properly shelved this summer, I definitely had the urge to read again. I even started a book, but wasn’t able to fit much in because I still just had ‘no time’.

It took a bit of inspiration to really get me going again. That came in the form of some delightful podcasts on the subject of reading aloud. I got very enthused about finding quality children’s books and reading to Marian and Alan more. In the process I just got excited about books in general, and wished I had time to read several titles that were in the back of my mind.

Some where along the way a few things changed –

I decided that reading is important. It wasn’t just a fun, frivolous hobby I used to do back when I had ‘time’. It is important for me to keep growing my mind – not only for my own good, but for the good of my kids. How can I expect to teach them and fill them up with knowledge and new thoughts if I am never filling up myself?

Instagram and Pinterest, while both are a great source of inspiration to me, they do not really feed me in the way that good solid books do. I realize more and more I can’t rely on a few minutes online here and there to give me the nourishment my mind needs to parent well and grow. (inspiration won’t get me anywhere without nourishment to back it up!) I can’t even describe the difference of my mood and overall feeling since I’ve started seriously, intentionally, reading again. I’ve just felt so much lighter and happier, with a much broader range of good thoughts to ponder about as I’m busy with my daily chores.

I’ve completed six titles since the first of the year, and I’m quite happy with that!

Here are a few of the books I have been enjoying lately:

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Bones of Contention by Marvin L. Lubenow

The Invisible Woman – When Only God Sees

The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaffer

For Women Only by Shaunti Fieldhann (a re-read)

Wild at Heart by John Eldridge

The Genesis Record by Henry Morris

Teaching from Rest by Sarah Mackenzie

As you can see there is not a single title of fiction on my list – this is not intentional because I love a good novel. My problem is I own and have read so many wonderful fiction books in the past, that I’m starting to ‘run out’ of my current knowledge of good titles. (I don’t like really any modern ‘chic-lit’ novels because they are just too shallow) So, if you have any good, solid recommendations in that area, please share!

I have also started a ‘book journal’ again. I kept a running list throughout my teenage years of all the books I read, and it was a lot of fun to see how many books you did or didn’t read in a given year, and what type of books shaped the year. This time the list has it’s own little book, and I have space to also jot a few notes about my thoughts after reading the book while it’s still fresh in my mind.

What are your reading habits?

Winshaw in winter.

It’s been gloomy, wet, and most of the time warmer than normal this season.

Every time it is warm enough we do try to get the kids outside. This time we had a long walk through the woods, and it was just too much for Alan.

The long evenings of winter call for lots of lamplight…

…and lots of baby snuggles.

We’ve been staying busy with our internet business – here we are, me, the kids, and the chickens all taking a load of packages to the mail box.

As always, squeezing sewing in a bit at a time where needed. It really is lovely to have a sewing room where my in progress items can just be ‘paused’ and undisturbed in between sewing sessions.

This winter has seen several bouts of sickness for all of us. I wonder how many cups of hot tea we have had so far?

Marian is thrilled whenever she gets the chance to accompany Jordan to check his trap line in the mornings.

(the chickens always follow a little ways to make sure they are not missing a feed)

Silly pictures with Mom….

Marian has become quite the tea drinker. She kept wanting drinks of my chai tea, but since I didn’t want her to have the caffeine, her new favorite has become her “own, own” mix of chamomile, milk, and honey.

Winter baby naps are the snuggliest.

Lots of laundry goes on the line whenever I get weather that is dry enough, which never seems to be often enough to stay caught up!

But at least I have the two cutest helpers.

Marian wants to do everything I do. I tried to sneak in some water-coloring in one day while she and Alan were playing happily – but it didn’t work. Marian was soon in my lap ‘learning’ to paint, and thoroughly enjoying it.

Both of the kids love their ‘Daddy time’.

It’s not always warm enough in the downstairs overnight to raise bread, but when it is I try to have some going.

Love that soft winter light.

Guess who is almost a year old? I can’t believe I don’t have a baby anymore… Alan is getting to be such his own little man, with such a vibrant, driven personality. His favorite thing already is being involved in anything ‘real’ – as in anything but baby toys. He especially loves getting to go outside and do ‘work’ with Da-da, make tractor noises, and hold any sort of ‘tool’.

We have had a very quiet winter so far, not going from home very often. I feel like I can never get enough time with my two little darlings – they almost sometimes feel like little strangers because they are changing so fast, and always surprising me.

Merry Christmas! It’s almost here! Marian is very excited. I am only slightly less so. I’ve been having lots of fun making up some simple decorations for our home mostly with items that we either gathered from the woods, or already had on hand.

We found the absolutely perfectly shaped, fluffy little cedar tree. I really wanted a little tree for our first tree. (this is our first Christmas at home together!) This one was exactly what I had in mind!

The one thing we did buy was a string of starry lights. I love these so much, they are very tiny and bright and strung on almost invisible copper wire. I love that they just disappear into the tree in the daytime! We got the solar powered option, but there are also battery powered options. In the picture above Jordan and Marian are wrapping the tree in lights. She was so happy we were getting a Christmas tree!

All decorated and glowing!

I used one of my antique 6 gallon crocks for the base. Jordan filled it with rocks and water, and it worked beautifully!

Our tree is decorated with pine cones, candy-canes, strung popcorn, and two types of homemade woods ornaments.  The gold ‘stars’ are sweet gum balls that drop from the trees in the fall. The silver balls are Sycamore seeds that we found on some low branches. Each of these we gathered and spray painted, then glued red, green, and gold ribbons to each one! I love how they turned out.

I’m hoping to keep most of our ornaments homemade and also new made every year. Most of these ‘nature’ ornaments just aren’t going to last season to season, so I was thinking it would be a fun tradition to have with the kids that we would actually make our ornaments before decorating the tree every year.

Two windows in the sitting room got decorated with extra greenery and pine cones.

Enjoying the cozy lights with a mug of something hot to drink. We’ve been drinking lots of coffee, tea, and hot chocolate lately…

The second stocking down is my stocking – the one I’ve been using for Christmas all my life. My Granny made it from an old quilt and added buttons and notions. I thought it would be fun to continue the quilt theme, so I added three more stockings for our family also made from vintage ‘cutter’ quilts I had in my stash.

I made a wreath for our door with cedar and pine branches, dotted with a few pine cones here and there.

I still have Christmas baking to do, and we still haven’t made our Gingerbread house. Will it happen? I don’t know. But Christmas is coming anyway!

Last week we breathed a sight of relief as we shipped the last of our Christmas bed orders out. We also made a fun trip into Nashville to do some last minute shopping, then we drove around some well-to-do neighborhoods and ooohed over the Christmas lights (and the houses). And ate pizza. It was sad because both kids fell asleep before we were looking at lights….but Jordan and I had fun!

I have been planning little gifts for Marian and Alan for months. I am so excited for Christmas morning!

Missing my family in Texas this year – but it’s also been fun to start a few of our own traditions. It will be fun to see how they develop as our kids get older. What are some of your families favorite traditions? I’d love to hear!

A very Merry Christmas to you from Winshaw!

One of our favorite things to do together since we got married is something we call ‘backroading’. Which basically means purposely getting lost on the farthest-back back roads we can find, and putting lots of miles on our pick-up.

On a recent Sunday we were staying home from church because we were all still recovering from a bad case of sniffles. But we were so ready to get out of the house (had been sick for two weeks!) that we decided to take that day and go backroading. We hadn’t done that since the summer, so it was high time! I packed a lunch to take in the car, and we were off!

One of our main purposes for backroading is to look for old houses. We just love coming up on a 19th century homestead and imagining what is used to look like in its glory days. It’s so sad to see these beautiful old houses abandoned and falling down.

This particular backroading trip took us into Kentucky,and we got to see some beautiful country! One of our biggest dreams is to have land of our own someday, so seeing fertile vistas really sparks our ‘someday’ conversations.

Jordan has trained me to be on the lookout for anything made of log. This log barn hidden in the woods was a neat find. Many times the old houses we see are also likely to be log underneath the painted siding.

Love seeing big barns! We can’t wait to build a barn of our own.

A general store in an abandoned downtown. (occasionally the roads to lead us into towns, but we leave as quick as we can!)

An old broken dam at a mill site over a big creek…

Sometimes if we are lucky, we catch glimpses of 19th century mansions that have been restored and are being lived in – it doesn’t take much imagination then to see what a grand place it must have been back in the day!

You really never know what is around the next bend in the road!

We ended our day with a beautiful sunset as we crossed the state line back into Tennessee, headed home.

The last weekend in September we stepped back in time to the 1940s for a day.

We attended ‘Remembering WWII‘ which took place in Linden, TN. The entire historic downtown area was dressed up 1940s style – buildings and people!

There were military reenactors, battles, lots of military and civilian vintage vehicles, a live big band, and many wonderful veterans speaking.

We tried to represent a 1940s farm family. (I don’t know if the stroller fit in with our impression…I didn’t research that part)

We got a surprise and at the last minute our friends Jesse, Alice and Gavin got to come stay with us for the weekend! We were so glad they did. Visit their lovely blog here.

As Marian’s dress from last year was of course too small – I had to make her a new one. It was a delightful project! The fabric is a candy pink rayon print from my stash. The pattern I was using was actually a 1950s pattern, but after studying quite a few 1940s pattern diagrams online, I was able to make the appropriate changes, and even added a few new design elements. Really happy with the way it turned out! Her shoes are vintage – a yard sale find gift from my Mom!

My dress was made new for the event (finished the day before as usual…oh dear). It is a yellow rayon print also from my fabric stash. The skirt actually came from an old dress I made years ago using 1940s patterns. I had long ago cut up the old dress because I wasn’t happy with it and it has been in pieces since. Yay for making it wearable again! My hat is vintage 1940s, purse & gloves vintage also.

Jordan decided to do a civilian impression this year. If you follow him on Instagram (@axe_and_anvil) you know that he has been working on restoring his circa 1941 Farmall A tractor. He really wanted to have it done for the event, but there just wasn’t enough time. His overalls are vintage style ‘Key’ brand, worn with a vintage Fedora he found on eBay.

There were lots of fun snapshots like this to be seen of soldiers and civilians all over town. However, I purposely didn’t take tons of event pictures, as there were many professional photographers there whose work will be posted to Remembering WWII ‘s website at some point. :) I knew they would capture it much better than I could.

The battle was quite loud, so Jordan was covering Alan’s ears – who apparently decided he might as well have a nap.

The whole down town was transformed into the year 1942. All the store front windows were displaying vintage items and/or posing as period correct stores – like the adorable toy store window above (featuring a retro style doll bed from Dream Come True), and a window from ‘Michelle’s of Paris’ dress shop below. The wedding dress is actually a loaned vintage 1941 dress from my collection. (I bought it at an estate sale years ago)

Those faces!

I had much too much fun pushing the stroller around town! I knew I wanted to have a vintage stroller (baby buggy? pram?…not sure what the correct term would be) So I had been searching the local craigslist for a while. Found this one for $60, but it needed quite a bit of work to get it in working order and looking presentable. My handy husband did a wonderful job with it – it was very smooth and easy to push, and it made the day SO much easier than having to carry our two big kids!

Even though the kids were tuckered out by the end of the day – we all had a wonderful time!