Christmas Traditions: Advent Tree

In our home, we try to bring the meaning of advent into our daily lives.  My favorite tradition is our Advent Tree (aka "Presents for Jesus").  This was inspired by a lenten cross my mother would put up every lent with a bowl of stickers next to it. The idea behind this is that when one of the children does something that is kind for someone else, is helpful, or makes a sacrifice for others - these are the presents that Jesus wants.  So, when they do these things, they get to take a "present" and place it under the "tree" or put an ornament on the tree.  The goal is to have as many presents under the tree and as many ornaments on the tree as possible - inspiring and rewarding selfless acts.

I made the tree out of Kraft Paper.  I just painted it with some leftover paint I had from another project.  This was a fun project for my then 5-yo to help.  I stapled it to our CORK DISPLAY BOARD, but you could just as easily tape one to the wall.

I love that this Advent Tree not only has a significant teaching and religious aspect to it, but it also makes a high impact eco-friendly decoration for the Christmas Season.  Everything can either be recycled or saved for next year's use.

You can make your own Advent Tree.  

How about you?  Do you have any Advent traditions that you love?

Cornucopia Bulletin Board

My husband built me this wonderful bulletin board next to our kitchen table.

It is just some chair rail framed around some cork panels.  We use it to display our children's art work that they bring home from school.

During the holiday seasons, however, we like to dress it up a bit.  So, I got out my trusty roll of kraft paper and some paint.

The boys came up with fruits and vegetables and I free-handed them onto the paper for them to paint.

 

 

Sometimes it is hard to get this quality time together.  This time is what I was feeling most thankful for.

Look at all those amazing fruits and vegetables!

Meanwhile,  I painted the cornucopia.

A few snips and staples later we have a bulletin board cornucopia.  We can take it down and reuse for next year, too!

The Garden My Husband Built

I often come up with lots of great ideas that create a good deal of work for my husband. Over these 16 years of togetherness, we seem to fall into these roles as a couple. I come up with some crazy plan and he makes it happen.

After a successful summer with a container herb garden on my deck, I thought we definitely needed a garden. The problem was, I am a very inconsistent "maintainer" (is that a word). I tend to have a ton of enthusiasm at the beginning of a project and then fizzle out as I get bored or discouraged. So, if this garden was going to work, it had to be pretty self-sustaining.

After a lot of research (thanks, Internet!) I decided we would need a raised bed garden with a drip irrigation system on a timer. Following much of the advice in Mel Bartholomew's book, Square Foot Gardening, we found a sunny spot in the yard and made a plan.

Cedar really would have been the best option for the beds, but it was out of our price range. We didn't want to use plain lumber because of the toxins it would leak into the ground. Although it is less than ideal, we settled on painted lumber (I LOVE the paint color - husband? not so much).



We put river rocks around the beds to keep weeds down and some flagstone for a walkway through the garden area. We put chicken wire underneath each of the beds to try to keep out digging varmits from beneath.




The drip irrigation on a timer has really been a life saver. If I go on vacation, the garden still gets watered. If I forget, the garden still gets watered. This is the number one thing that has turned my black thumb at least military green.




So, after two years of gardening, we have had some great successes (such as an abundant strawberry harvest, beautiful herbs, and lots of broccoli) and we have had many failures (2 years of failed eggplant, spinach destroyed by aphids, and deer eating all our tomato plants). But each year we learn a great deal. It brings me so much joy to tend to the plants with my children and to "pick" our dinner at night.

The Garden My Husband Built is a Finer Thing

This post is a contribution to Finer Things Friday at Amy's The Finer Things in Life.

Pass the Weeds, Please (Episode I)

I’ve been intrigued by foraging for food in my backyard my whole life. My neighbors and I searched for wild strawberries, ate “onion grass”, and came up with a recipe for “lemon grass” cheese sauce. At the time, it did not concern me whether or not these things were toxic. Lucky for me, they weren’t!

Now I am a suburbanite who does not want to use fertilizer or weed killer to have a lush, green bed of grass in my lawn. Instead, I like to arm my children with baskets to go collect dinner from the lawn. Backyard foraging has become a fun family activity. Here are some of the things we can find in our mid-atlantic yard:

Purslane (Portulaca oleracea) – This is my absolute favorite weed. I like to just pluck off some of the succulent leave and eat them plain because they are tasty. They have a little bit of a lemony flavor to them. A sprig of purslane makes a great addition to a toss salad, an addition to a tomato sauce, or as a component of a pesto. What is unique about purslane is that the leaves are naturally high in Omega-3 fatty acids, which is rare for green vegetables. The stems are high in Vitamin C. I like to put purslane in a container garden – it doesn’t need too much tending. Most often purslane is considered a weed and people are trying to eradicate it, but if I see some growing in a friends yard, I just say “May I have your weeds?”

How to Identify Purslane

Nutrition Information for Raw Purslane


Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) – This is my second-favorite weed. Besides the fact that it is a beautiful flower and makes great bouquets, necklaces, rings, and hair accessories, it is extremely useful food and herbal remedy. Have you ever eaten that Whole Foods “Spring Greens” in a bag salad mix? You are probably eating Dandelion greens. The leaves are great in the spring for salads, pesto, or sandwich toppings. Dandelion greens are a great source of Vitamin A and C as well as fiber. The roots are great in the fall for a bitter tea or as a nutritional supplement. Dandelion roots harvested in the fall are high in inulin (soluble fiber). The flowers can be eaten raw, cooked, or dried and ground into flour.

How to Identify Dandelions

Nutrition Data for Dandelion: Greens

Wild Blackberries (Rubus allegheniensis) – We have these growing all along our fenceline as well as on our bike-riding route. What could be better than free blackberries? The brambles can be prickly, so take care when picking these. Make sure to wait until they are dark purple before picking – otherwise, they won’t taste very good. Use them just as you would blackberries: Freeze them, make a jam, add to a fruit smoothie, or best – just eat them as you pick!

How to identify Wild Blackberries

Some words of caution…

1. Don’t eat any foraged food that is from an area that may be exposed to insecticides, road salt (from snow), or any foreign chemical substances that you don’t know about.
2. Make sure to clean anything that you pluck from your yard thoroughly.
3. Make sure you can absolutely, positively identify something before you eat it. Many plants in your yard are poisonous.
4. Don’t encourage non-native invasive species to grow. Check with your state or local invasive species organization.

Resources
Properly identifying anything you forage is very important. Here are some great resources to help with that. I am a big fan of naturalist “Wildman” Steve Brill who has written a book on the subject and has a wealth of information on his website: http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/. He includes tons of information on identifying plants that are edible and is working on a book for foraging with kids.

An organization called Plants for a Future (http://www.pfaf.org/index.php) has a searchable database of edible plants with all kinds of information on uses of the plants and any hazards or warnings about their usage. It is an excellent free resource.

Frugal and Fun: Backyard Foraging is a Finer Thing. (See more Finer Things at Amy’s Finer Things Fridays).

This is a series and I plan to share more foraging tips, resources, and recipes to try.

Cre8 4th 0f July T-Shirts (and Rocks)

I love celebrating the 4th of July. This year, we had a nice "small town" 4th of July (even though we live far from a small town). I was looking for a good activity to celebrate with that would appeal to my 13-yo niece as well as my 4 and 6 year old boys. Using some fabric paint and some plain white t-shirts, we made our own Independence Day shirts.



We put coloring books in the middle of the shirt to make sure the paint didn't spread to the back.


And the kids decided to make some patriotic pet rocks....



Fun was had by all.

Garden Planning 2009

The blogosphere has spoken and I have listened. Now is the time to begin planning my 2009 vegetable garden. Thankfully, there are SO many great resources on the Internet for those of us who have a track record of killing plants rather than growing them. Here are two:

• Amy at "The Finer Things In Life" has a comprehensive post on advice for vegetable gardening.
  


• I also like the "10 Steps to a Successful Vegetable Garden" at About.com.

One thing I haven't been able to find is some advice about managing pests (from deers and groundhogs to unwelcome bugs) in an eco-friendly way. Anyone have good resources to offer?

Last year I had a container garden which I could conveniently keep on my back deck and the deer couldn't get to (although, a groundhog frequented my garden for a parsley meal). This year, I'm planning to expand to a full-out backyard vegetable garden. Unfortunately, none of my herbs survived the winter other than my bay laurel, so I have to start from scratch. Here's what I would like to plant (it is yet to be seen what I actually do).

• Vegetables
  
  • Peppers (Cayenne, Bell, Paprika)
  • Asparagus
  • Lettuce
  • Spinach
  • Tomatoes
  • Garlic
  • Onion
  • Broccoli
  • Pumpkin
  • Squash


• Herbs
  
  • Parsley
  • Cilantro
  • Basil
  • Bay Laurel
  • Thyme
  • Rosemary
  • Sage
  • Oregano
  
  
• Sunflowers (because they are just so awesome)...
  

Cre8 an Eco-Friendly Pre-School Birthday Party

I've been struggling this year with putting together a birthday party for my three boys that is simple, fun, and a minimal impact on the environment. This year, no cheap plastic goody bags from Oriental Traders and the like. But, I have been struggling with what to do as an alternative.

In the end, I think I'll only partially meet my goal, but I'll document the party on the blog and let you know how it goes.

In the mean time, I found a great resource over at Kiwi which provided some good ideas - some of which I think I'll use.

Does anyone else struggle with this? Any ideas to share?

Cre8 Little Environmentalists

with Family Nature Traditions and Nature Routines

As Richard Louv asks in his fabulous book “Last Child in the Woods”, how can we expect our children to be stewards of the environment when they have never experienced nature? In a manufactured world suburban world, where television, video games, Chuck E Cheese’s, and Jump Zones are pulling your children inside to play and veg, how do you push them back outside to experience the glory of the natural world?

When I look back at my own childhood, it is those simple experiences with nature shared with my friends and family that have had the biggest impact on my desire to preserve and care for the world. So, to instill a passion for protecting the earth in my own children, I turn to family traditions and outings – building positive experiences and memories of the natural world with my boys.

Camping Adventures
Our family tradition that we’ve done for 6 years now is to go camping in the mountains every Memorial Day Weekend. Sometimes we have a ton of friends go with us, sometimes it is just the family, but we go every year. – And yes, you can camp with little babies – even twin babies!
If you are camping a National or State Park, make sure to take advantage of all those great learning opportunities: guided nature walks, presentations by naturalists, hands-on activities at a nature center.

Nature Walks and Picnics
I love exploring nature with my children. They notice so many little things that I don’t see myself. When we go out for a hike, we always bring our picnic lunch. It’s a great opportunity to teach my boys about not leaving anything behind and making as little impact as possible. We pack up the lunch in reusable bags, use our Klean Kanteens for drinks, bring along our cloth napkins (made from old cloths), and include a bag to carry home the compostable material. We talk with the kids about each of these choices we make so they understand the impact of these choices versus the alternative on the environment. And if they see trash on the trail along the way and want to bring it home with us, I try to be supportive rather than grossed out.

I think it is important to celebrate all the nature we see in the local ecosystem along the way. It’s almost like a scavenger hunt. We try to find interesting plants, bugs, birds, and reptiles. We search for animal poop and try to discover what kind of animal made it (see a great resource “Who Pooped in the Park” series to find a local National Park version ) . Most of all, my boys like to look for bones. A little disturbing? Maybe. But, I think it makes them feel like little paleontologists.

Family Rock Climbing
I love Rock Climbing as a family. It is such a great way to experience nature together. It always involves a hike to our climbing location and a day outside with the rocks, the trees, and the dirt. We always go home tired, dirty, and happy. You can’t get that experience by going to the gym.

Gardening and Composting
One of our family routines that we started in 2008 was gardening and composting. These are two things even toddlers can help out with. They see the waste (like their banana peel) turn into fertilizer for their garden which helps the herbs and vegetables grow which ends up in their spaghetti and pizza sauce. The kids love to care for and harvest the herbs, vegetables, and flowers. They beam with pride when they can present their Nana with a sunflower that they grew themselves from seed.

And so much more….
There are so many other ways we can build positive nature experiences with our families. Pick-Your-Own berries, a trip to the pumpkin patch, a visit to the nature center, the botanical gardens, even the beach can build a greater appreciation for the natural world in our children and ourselves. This is the foundation upon which caring for the earth is built.

How do you build your own positive experiences in the natural world?

This is my submission for the February APLS Carnival on “Nature and the Environment”. The carnival will be posted February 20th at The Green Phone Booth.