Pioneer School

Today our homeschool group had an all day field trip at the Newell House Museum in Champoeg State Park not far from our home. The kids went to pioneer school, learned about Oregon history and were able to do some pioneer crafts including candle making, carding wool, making journals, etc. We ate lunch in the park and had a great day with friends! Mira's favorite part was going to school in the real pioneer schoolhouse and Annah's favorite part was washing clothes on the washboard and hanging them to dry.

Making Butter with Kids

Today the girls and I made butter using half a quart of creme. Making butter is very easy and fun, especially if you have a KitchenAid or some sort of mixer. Annah, above, is holding our jar of fresh creme that we skimmed from the top of a gallon of farm fresh milk that we picked up yesterday from a local farm family.

Whip the creme in a KitchenAid or other mixer on the highest setting for 10-15 minutes. It will first turn to whip creme and then slowly settle down and separate into buttermilk and butter clumps. This takes a good 10 minutes.

Once the butter is separated from the buttermilk, let the kids grab the clumps of butter and squish them into balls of butter. Have a bowl of clean, cold water handy and dip the butter balls in the water several times to rise away any buttermilk. Add some sea salt and continue to roll into a ball or press into a butter mold.

Here's our final product. We got about 1/2 cup of butter. It was soft but after sitting in the fridge it will harden up. We used some of ours for our lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches.

If you're using raw, unhomogenized milk, you can skim the creme from the top of the milk. In the photo above you can see a layer of about one inch of creme on the top of my milk. The rest we used to make the butter.

My Sweet Family

Calling All FarmGirls

For all of you women in the Willamette Valley, I just started a local chapter of the international club called FarmGirls. If you love gardening, cooking, working with your hands and meeting other women, consider joining our group. I hope that starting this summer we can meet monthly for picnics at local farms, share and trade extra produce from our gardens, teach each other things about canning, preserving, baking, gardening, cooking, and hang out and have fun.

From Mary Jane's Farm website, here is what FarmGirls is all about:

A farmgirl believes in the strong arms of friendship, community and the just plain fun of being together. A farmgirl takes joy in the quiet satisfaction of making things with her own hands. She exudes kindness, grace, humility, gentleness, patience and generosity, and loves the simple pleasures in life. A farmgirl is loyal and caring, especially when it comes to her family, friends and community. She gives generously of her time and talents. Farmgirls love to get together to share their ideas. She can be with or without fields and stock. Farmgirl is a condition of the heart.

To join our Willamette Valley Oregon FarmGirls chapter just leave a comment or send me an email. Or if you live to far away, consider starting your own chapter. The first ten women to sign up get a free membership certificate, a free FarmGirl bumper sticker and other prizes!

And if you don't know about Mary Janes Farm Magazine, check it out. It's one of my favorites.

Mira's Play: The House at Pooh Corner

For the last two months Mira has been going to theater practice three nights a week and many Saturdays. She is acting in our local community theater, the Brush Creek Playhouse, in the upcoming production of The House at Pooh Corner. Mira is playing the part of Tigger and has been doing great learning her lines and learning about performing on stage. Although at first she was extremely shy and nervous about being on stage, this experience has been amazing for her self-confidence. Being part of the play has been a wonderful experience for our whole family! Above is a photo from a recent night of play practice. The set is mostly up and some of the kids are wearning their costumes in the photo. Mira is the one in the green pants on the left.

The part Mira plays is double cast, so Mira only acts in half the shows. Here's the schedule of shows that Mira will be acting in in case you want to come see her. I believe the cost is $10 for adults and I'm not sure about the child price. It runs about 1 1/2 hours and has a short intermission. The play is held at Brush Creek Playhouse on Silverton Rd. The playhouse is a historic old red schoolhouse.

Mira's Playtimes

Saturday April 18: 2 pm
Sunday, April 19: 2 pm
Friday April 24: 7 pm
Saturday April 25: 7 pm
Saturday May 2: 7 pm
Sunday May 3: 2pm

If you can make it let me know! We'd love to see our family and friends there!

Sweet Baby of Mine

These days at our house you can't open any cupboard or drawer without discovering a baby doll tucked in under a blanket inside. There are baby dolls in my nightstand, in my Tupperware drawer, in the TV cabinet and in the sock drawers. They are literally all over the house (we have many dolls). Oh the joy of having a four-year-old daughter! Recently she came downstairs wearing this baby dress that my aunt Carol gave us years ago. It was intended for a newborn, but doesn't Annah look sweet?

Spring Hike to Opal Creek

Today was a beautiful and warm day here in the Pacific Northwest and we celebrated it by worshiping God in nature instead of church as usual. We drove about an hour to the Mill City area (HWY 22 towards Central Oregon) to Opal Creek Ancient Forest trail head. At Opal Creek you can hike in to Jawbone Flats, a historic mining town about 3 miles down the trail. Both girls did great and enjoyed the snow, many waterfalls and amazing views. It took us almost four hours to hike the entire trail but we did it! Annah (age 4) kept us all motivated with her constant singing. I think she had the most energy out of anybody! We packed a great picnic of veggie sandwiches on homemade rolls, veggie chips, fruit and cookies. And in Danish tradition (thanks Dad for teaching us to never leave home without a thermos of coffee!) we packed a thermos with two lattes to enjoy at the halfway point.

Guess who got pelted with snowballs right after this photo was taken?

Break number one: we gave the girls a little piece of candy for each mile they walked to keep them motivated.

One of the entrances to the old mine.

Finally back at the trailhead almost four hours and 6.2 miles later!