Harry Potter mania!

Violet syrup

So I took the plunge in making violet syrup today. Yesterday we spent two hours picking the violets. I put my neck out somehow earlier yesterday morning... so the violet picking was quite the feat!

The colour of the infusion was this gorgeous brilliant purple colour. The recipe that I used called for honey. When it came to a boil it turned brown... too bad. Since I knew that you can use violets as a PH tester, I decided to add a bit of lemon juice to see if that would pink up the colour a bit. It did... but now it is reddish brown. I am a little disappointed because I really pictured a vibrant purple syrup to use through winter next year. That is what happens when you have expectations I suppose! Oh well... I have some other violet tricks up my sleeve to try in the next couple of weeks, so I may manage to capture that lovely violet essence yet!

Last nights festivities

These lanterns are all made out of cloth. It is the first year that the festival has been completely outdoors. Usually it is indoors for the actual lanterns. There have typically been a lot more lanterns and the festival runs for 3 days or so. This year was only one and quite small. I think that our teeny town is having insurance issues because so many events have been cancelled or really scaled back.

A lantern tree with hundreds of lanterns done by children.

A huge rattan lantern on a burner .

Ok... it was really tricky to get a pic of these. They released about two dozen lanterns into the sky. It was so pretty. A little nerve wracking because it was really windy... the firefighters only had to put out one fire!... but that just made it exciting!

It was a beautiful night with a very very cold wind. The kids did really well in the crowd with only oldest growing increasingly jumpy and flappy and maniacally giggly as the night went on. Youngest one deals with it all by wrapping in a blanket all the way over his head and snuggling up in a parents arms. It was a late night for them!

It really is spring!

Busy day today! We went to a Taiwanese lantern festival tonight.... I'll try to upload some piccies in the morning! Went for a little outing into the bush with my oldest before dinner tonight and this is what we brought home...

Nettles for supper and wild violets which are in the process of becoming a special syrup right now.

Creepy crawlies!!!

So we recieved the first exciting package in the mail today! We used a teeny portion of our school funding to purchase a praying mantis egg sack. The box was carefully carried the entire 2 km home... and only dropped twice. Luckily it seemed to be well packaged. Now it is in it's new safe home in a terrerium on our kitchen table. Very very exciting!

Time for a booster seat finally!

Littlest one is up another TWO pounds this morning! This totals 4 pounds in the last three months. The last couple of pounds have gone on in the last three weeks or so. There was a lull there in the middle when we were all sick and I even think that he had lost a bit of weight. Anyhow, that is almost a whole years worth of growth in the past 3 months! I had been so worried when we cut out dairy, that he would lose weight and not thrive... looks like we found the culprit. I was a little bit worried about a month ago because it looked like he was regressing and losing the new skills that I had seen at the beginning. He was moody and angry a lot again and retreating into himself a lot more. Over the past week or so I am seeing the improvements again. He even played with the one little boy that he couldnt even be on the same block as before. If there was anyone that could throw him into an instant meltdown it was this sweet little guy with no personal boundary sense! My guy would see him coming from blocks away and freak out. Last week we saw that he was in the teeny little store that we were going into. I immediately said that we would just hit the store on the way back insted. Little guy said " No ... I think I can handle it!" . My jaw almost hit the floor. He DID handle it, and then they played for a minute out front of the store together.So shocking. And awesome!
So he has gone from being completely off the growth chart to the 25th percentile in only three months( and has finally hit the milestone where we can get a booster seat for the car). He has gained 2 or three years of social skills in the same amount of time. My other son showed this drastic of an improvement when we cut out gluten 4 years ago. Now hubby wants to cut dairy for him as well and see if some of the lingering behaviors start to improve as well.

Really incredible. The sensitivities definitely are genetic somehow and cause neurological symptoms. Looks like autism... but autism doesnt just go away. We are by no means " cured", but we are able to tolerate life and navigate the world sooooo much better now. I think that they are going to find a " new celiac" type of genetic issue with gluten and casien. I have been pointed towards metabolic/ mito disorders but just am not finding a match... even though my gut says that something like this is going on.

Busy week!

We spent the entire weekend in the garden!! I am completely exhausted , but in that tingly well exercised body kind of way. We doubled our garden. That entailed a ton of breaking up the field grass , so was a lot of work. We hauled it all back into the forest. We moved our compost and turned the finished stuff back into the garden, the unfinished to continue its process in its new location. We repaired the fence in the multiple spots where the bear tore it apart last year. We made a gate in the back fence... cause the neighbours are moving and we don't want to inconvenience any new ones by trouping through their yard multiple times of day. Besides, it will make it a lot easier to get the bikes in and out into the trails this way. We moved the old strawberry bed into the newly expanded garden. I wanted to make everything more central so that the watering isn't such a chore. In the past everything has been spread out all over the yard making watering a little more time consuming. If we have trouble with the water source like we did last year it will help to have everything in one spot so that no water is wasted while hand watering. We raked the neighbours yard to take advantage of the leaves for mulch. I harvested a large bucket of spring dandelion root and have them soaking, ready to chop and lay out on screens to dry. I expanded my herb garden by building another raised bed beside the old one, enriching the soil and moving some of my older herbs to the new garden. It made it much easier to get the grass bits out . Now I have the space to weed out the old one properly and get it ready for more plants.
On top of this we grocery shopped, picked up canning jars at the thrift store... and I made three spring, light toques. One left to make tonight!
My neighbour came back from Egypt and brought the boys back some Egyptian currency, some sand ( I think that might be illegal... but the boys were stoked and looked at it under the microscope)and some papyrus and bookmarks with hieroglyphics so that the boys could make codes. I don't make them plan schooly things with their supplies, but painting hieroglyphics was the first thing that they wanted to do on it. They were pretty freakin excited.
So I am super duper tired and ready to crash out... knew I hadn't updated for a while. Feeling soooooo happy to have a bit of spring. I have to say, after a long spring day and a glass of wine we tore all of the plastic off of the windows last night. It lets so much more light into the house and a little bit of flow. It is always such a liberating sensation! So much more hope this time of the year!
I will be sure to post this week.... we have some pretty sweet things coming in the mail during the workweek that I am excited to share!