In These Hills

A Simple Box

This little writing piece is part of a writing workshop I am participating in today.

This simple brown box speaks to the world about a time in New England when life was made by hand. When looking at this box the world might imagine it in a farmhouse kitchen or dairy. One might imagine a woman reaching for it to scoop of cornmeal or pull out a cheese as she prepares a meal over the wood stove for her family. Or one might imagine a farmer slowly wetting this wood and bending it into the circular form to create a supremely utilitarian yet beautiful holder from wood on his own land.

To me this is a memory box. Open the box and inside reveals my Grandmother's world. It lived in her closet by her sewing machine and contains buttons from her clothing and that of her children. It contains her children's teeth pulled quietly from under a pillowcase back in the 1940s, a silver thimble fit perfectly on her hand until her hand grew too gnarled by arthritis for it to fit, and a scrap of cloth with her initials carefully cut from her wedding linen.

The box connects the two of us and our love of sewing, history, family and home. Today this box made by a farmer, loved by my Grandmother, now lives in my closet where I drop in buttons from family clothing and tuck in my childen's teeth. Threads through time are in this box.

Another College Tour

>> Friday, February 22, 2013 – College

We continued our college search with Helen this week by touring University of Vermont. We are so lucky to live in a state with such a great university (even if it is still pretty expensive for in-state students--I guess that's what you get for living in a small state).

The campus is just beautiful with a combination of older buildings such as these which house the College of Arts and Sciences--Helen's choice--

--and new buildings such as the student center.

UVM takes great pride in its environmentally friendly policies (such as no bottled water for sale anymore) and these energy-efficient dorms/learning communities are just one example. We saw also saw solar-powered buildings and internal bio-microbiotic water systems for buildings.

UVM sits on Lake Champlain and has a club crew team--a big plus for Helen.

The views are just gorgeous. To the west lies Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks and to the east lie the Green Mountains.

I firmly believe that college touring needs to be fun. While I enjoy poking my nose in all the buildings and looking at the architecture, the girls just don't. So we combined our tour with a bit of fun in Burlington including lunch at the Skinny Pancake--a favorite.

I am pretty sure Helen will apply to UVM!

An Orange 14th Birthday!

>> Wednesday, February 20, 2013 – cooking, Crafts, winter

Elizabeth celebrated her 14th birthday on Monday. It's a big year for her--she graduates from the Waldorf school and heads off to high school. She spent last week taking placement exams and is waiting anxiously to see where she is placed.

Happily her birthday fell on President's Day so we had the day off to celebrate. I did some birthday cooking in the morning and then Helen, Liz, and I headed out on the town for her special day.

Our first stop was a vintage clothing store which is two floors of designer vintage clothing and fabric. She loves fashion so this was a big hit. We stayed for a long time!

We then moved along to lunch at a local Italian restaurant and stopped in the neighboring chocolate shop afterwards. We didn't end up buying anything, but it was fun to look.

Finally, we went to the fabric store. She was getting tired of having her photo taken by this point :). I bought some fabric to make a new table runner for her birthday dinner. We all found little items for crafting.

After we got home it was time to work on the big dinner. I had decided to make a small, tall birthday cakes by baking the batter in cans. I used the tomato cans from the lasagna I had made earlier in the day. After I filled the cans I decided to quick look online to make sure I was doing it right. I found this blog which revealed her...um...struggles with this baking method and realized I had put in twice as much batter as I needed. I removed the batter, put the cans on a pan just in case and crossed my fingers.

Success. Here's what they looked like after about 25 minutes in the oven and the all-important 10 minutes of cooling in the cans.

We took a Downton Abbey break and celebrated/mourned the final episode with two pots of tea and petits fours. This just about made Liz's birthday perfect.

After Downton Abbey the girls decorated the cakes by slicing them horizontally and filling each layer with whipped cream and fresh raspberries. Here Liz is also getting candles ready to put in the birthday board made by her Great-Great Grandfather.

Liz's favorite color these days is orange so we also got carnations yesterday and dyed them orange with food coloring in the water. Magic!

Here's her orange birthday table with the fun table runner I whipped up.

We wrapped her gifts in orange as well.

Gifts for a 14 year old are hard--we gave her a kit of Smash Book materials, some fashion/sewing books, and a Vogue poster--perfect.

Here's the cake on the birthday board.

Liz agrees that it was the most perfect birthday ever!

A Valentines Tale

>> Sunday, February 17, 2013 – Crafts, winter

Getting everyone inspired for making Valentines was a bit of a challenge this year. Liz joined me at the table to make cards for a little while, but Helen wasn't so enthusiastic. It's an ongoing theme/challenge with teens--how to keep up the handmade traditions as they get older and less engaged.

I got inspired to do a little bit of "found poetry" out of the newspaper. Liz's Valentine poem was made up of words clipped from an article about an Albatross who had recently had a baby and flown across oceans to care for it. Helen's came from a travel article on vineyards in France! Perfect words in those two articles, I tell you!

Here's the one I made for Nelson.

Helen and Liz finally got inspired and disappeared for an afternoon. They drove into town, had coffees, and bought a large amount of gourmet chocolate. They came back and made Valentine boxes for their purchases. Yup. My girls are now driving off for afternoons on their own. Here are Helen's designs.

Liz got inspired by origami and made us these little boxes....filled with chocolate!

The weekend before Valentines day Nelson disappeared into the basement to work on a mysterious project. The girls were mystified. I had an idea since I know that Nelson isn't a big fan of making paper valentines and he hadn't joined in the paper/glue extravaganza either. He presented us each with a wooden box he had made... filled with chocolates.

No worries about us eating all that chocolate. Before I could catch him, Odin climbed up on the table and finished it all off foil coverings and all. Bad doggie. He got put in the crate for a long time!

In the end it was a lovely Valentines Day. I love seeing the creativity come forth from everyone!

12th Night!

>> Friday, February 15, 2013 – Christmas

I'm not really sure where the time has gone since the holidays. It has just evaporated. Here is the first of a few catch-up posts!

Twelfth Night fell on a Sunday this year which made it possible to have a gathering of friends for a nice long visit. Nelson spent the afternoon cleaning up the greens. At last he was able to have his fire.

I spent the day making this chocolate torte. I have managed to LOSE my cake pans so had to make it in this Valentine's pan. The torte was deep chocolate with thin layers of apricot and whipped cream, topped with a chocolate genoise. Amazing. Of course there was a coin hidden inside. I also clearly need a more attractive cake plate! So it was a strange shape and on a strange plate, but delicious.

After dinner and cake we settled into some 12th night games. We skipped these traditional games last year and the girls clamored for their return.

First up was snap dragon. We placed dried cranberries in a dish with warm brandy and lit the brandy. You had to reach through the flame, grab a cranberry, pop it in your mouth, and make a wish. We do this in the dark so it never photographs well. It is an exciting/daring game and not everyone gets to make a wish.

Next up we cast fortunes. We melted solder in an old metal spoon over a candle flame.

After it melted we quickly poured it into a bowl of water. The solder explodes into crazy shapes. The goal is to then interpret the shapes and read your fortune. Magnifying glasses help.