Category Archives: the great outdoors

in a trance

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Behold some beauty, lovelies. My Mom (thanks, Mutti!) sent my brother and I each a package of trance lanterns and we chose to explore this whole fire-with-young-kids thing together. It was so fun and incredibly beautiful. Have you seen these yet? I haven’t seen them sold locally yet, but you can get them here on Amazon. As Wren likes to say, “and they don’t make any noise!” She does NOT like the noise of fireworks. These would be great for any celebration out in a meadow or near the water where you could gaze up at a lot of them at once. En masse, lovelies, en masse. We’re going to set off a few more tonight with the other cousins. More fire-with-young-kids fun!

 

 

Escape from Cherry Fest

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We’re in the midst of the National Cherry Festival here in Traverse City and while I love my annual corn dog (check!) and ferris wheel ride (and elephant ear, ahem) just like the next fair-goer, the traffic and craze and dust and heat and cheese factor of it all gets to me after a few days. The girls and I were in need of a quick escape from it and I remembered there were some hosta gardens about twenty minutes away I’d heard about. People have been telling me about them for several years now, but I hadn’t made it a priority to go see them. And although it wasn’t on my summer list, it’s one of the best times I’ve had this summer.

Cedar Hedge Gardens (no hosta in the name at all!) is really a private home with four acres of Japanese-style gardens for wandering, chimes for listening, gongs for banging and ponds for gazing. It was just what we needed: calm, serene, beautiful. I wanted to take a really long, cool nap under the big trees with the elephantine hosta leaves to shade me. Aaaah.

spontaneity on Sleeping Bear Bay

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I’m not really much of a planner and yet I’m not always up for a last minute, spontaneous evening outing with the birdies either. But Chris came home early Friday night and suggested we grab some hot dogs, s’mores fixings, gin & tonics (you know, the basics…) and swim suits and drive out to Good Harbor Bay for the evening. Alright, let’s do it! So we rushed around to pack up beach, dinner, and bedtime stuff, which easily turns into a car full of about half the house. So. We eventually got out to Good Harbor and were immediately attacked by biting flies. Arrghh. On to spontaneous plan two.

At this point Wren is very hungry and annoyed that she has to get back in the car so I throw her an open package of graham crackers and we’re on our way. We head south down M-22 and I remember that there’s a great beach on Sleeping Bear Bay that I know as Thoreson Beach, although I really have no idea if it even has a name. So we got to “Thoreson Beach” and were greeted with wind, dark clouds and a looming storm in the distance, but no biting flies. After some discussion about how much time we had before the storm hit, we hauled the stuff down to the beach. As we were setting up, the storm clouds began to dissipate. And a magical evening was had.

Say yes to last minute ideas, lovelies. But don’t let your cell phone spontaneously swim. That, I learned, is really not a great idea.

Happy Summer!

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Happy (official) summer, lovelies! Although the needle has hovered around summery temps off and on since March (!) this year, the summer solstice is upon us. Truth be told, summer is not my favorite season because I don’t fair very well in the heat, but I am planning on embracing it this year. Yes indeed. I have already run more miles in 90 degrees than I ever have so I feel like I’m ready for the heat. I still haven’t exactly figured out how to beach it with a toddler and sand-eating babe in tow, but I’m getting my head and heart wrapped around it. Our nest is in the market for a beach tent/canopy thingy right now. Taking recommendations! And ideas on how to make it work…

It was fun to revisit last year’s Summer List and think about where we were then and the season of life we’re in now. I had a growing baby bump and was still trying to wean Wren from her bedtime nursing. Wren was just two and so much has happened since then. For one, we’ve got this beautiful almost 8 month old with us now who loves to share her sister’s popsicles. And Wren’s bedtime nursing? She just gradually stopped on her own, maybe 4-5 months ago? Or maybe more. My sleep-deprived Mama brain can’t remember! Anyway, I’m glad there was no trauma involved and she weaned on her own. Phew. Now she’s a “big girl” of three with an insatiable appetite for watermelon.

So this year’s summer-with-two-birdies list? Here goes. Many are repeats because they’re just essential.

  • enjoy my annual corn dog at the Cherry Festival
  • can and/or pickle something from our garden
  • pick strawberries (DONE!) and blueberries to put up (freeze, jam, bake?)
  • eat a fresh sandwich from the Village Cheese Shanty in Leland
  • take the girls to the Northwest Michigan Fair. “Goin’ to the fair, goin’ to the fair, goin’ to the Northwest Michigan Fair!”
  • stay up late to be awed by the Perseid meteor showers in August
  • dance with the little birdies at the Cedar Polka Fest.
  • take in a film at the Traverse City Film Festival
  • finish painting the house
  • update the kitchen and move the oven up before the littlest birdie is on the move
  • speaking of moving birdies… enjoy watching the littlest birdie begin to move
  • enjoy lots of park picnics
  • visit all the playgrounds in the area
  • swim with Melissa
  • train hard for the Sleeping Bear 1/2 Marathon in October
  • continue losing weight and getting fitter (did I tell you I’ve been doing an early morning boot camp? oof)
  • help Wren develop her swimming skills
  • have a date night with Chris at Siren Hall with evening sunshine, gin and tonics and shrimp
  • take our first family camping trip (also taking tips and recommendations, but not your horror stories, please and thank you!)

How about you, lovelies? What’s on your must-do summer list? Here’s to a wonderful summer filled with sprinklers, bubbles and sandy toes.

visiting the iris farm

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Another spring, another trip to see the irises. We love visiting the Black Iris Farm just a bit outside of Traverse City. We’re greeted with countless rows of vibrant colors, which is quite the spectrum spectacle for a color lover. The bearded iris flowers are always in bloom around Wren’s birthday and I hope I’ll always remember going there to get flowers for her first birthday party. And again last year when I remember it perking Wren up after a rough morning when she was entering her charming “tasmanian devil” stage…

We visited this year once during the day and then we begged Chris to take his girls there another evening when the shadows would be long and the sun full of gold. Do you ever go back somewhere with the light in mind? I learned that from my Dad.

Here is a great example of the light difference in these two untouched photos. The one above taken in mid-morning with harsh, almost directly overhead, cool light. And the next one taken in mid-evening, with the sun lower in the sky and full of warmth.

My Dad also taught me to “choose happiness.” I am reminded of this perspective on life every day when I see Wren’s free, creative spirit in action.

I’m not sure how this post turned into things I learned from my parents, but seeing this sign for one of the varieties of iris makes me think of my Mom and our mutual love of words. I’m pretty sure I got this from her.

Although I don’t see my parents very often because we don’t live close to each other, I think of them every day. I wonder what my kids will learn from me? This has been on my mind a lot lately as Wren is now of the age where she can form lifelong memories of events, or so “they” say. Will she remember visiting the iris farm? Or will the photos create the illusion of a “memory” for her? Or will she just remember being nagged to keep her shoes on instead of remembering the pure joy of running through the sandy fields, bare toes and all? Please, dear child, remember the joy.

Triple Falls

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Another highlight from our trip to North Carolina was a balmy evening spent at Triple Falls. Apparently, part of “The Hunger Games” was filmed here, as well as “The Last of the Mohicans” so it’s been drawing quite a few tourists although it wasn’t busy when we were there. I can easily see why. It’s incredibly beautiful; I could only imagine just how much more stunning it was a couple weeks earlier with the forest of rhododendron in bloom. Although I was sorry to have missed the rhododendron, it was so nice to take a little hike and be rewarded with a misty spectacle at the top. Even Phoebe squealed and kicked when we were in the mist. And Wren had a blast playing on the slippery rocks and giving me constant heart attacks as there is nothing between your quick child and the falls. Fencing? Ha.

strawberry picking

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I hadn’t even thought about strawberry picking when I envisioned our trip to North Carolina last month. But I kept seeing fresh strawberries on just about every corner as we were driving around the Hendersonville/Asheville area. I jumped online to Pick Your Own, a great resource for finding local farms in your area that allow you to pick your own fruit and vegetables. Sure enough, there was a family-friendly farm only about fifteen minutes from my Dad’s house near Hendersonville. Fun! So one very hot and sweaty afternoon we headed to the strawberry farm to get some of our own. So gratifying to find those red jewels under their lush green canopy.

Strawberries are my favorite fruit (and probably Wren’s too) so we were in heaven while strawberry picking. There really isn’t much more wonderful than picking strawberries in the late afternoon and enjoying a fresh, real strawberry shortcake a couple hours later. And then a big bowl of strawberries and fresh cream the next day. Strawberries for breakfast, lunch and dinner, yes, please and thank you.

Bonus: we returned home to northern Michigan and realized that our own strawberry plants will bring us another round of strawberry heaven. And soon! They are looking really good this year. Something about this weekend’s 90 and sunny catapulted us right into the middle of summer…

Empire in April

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Everyone is always talking about “Paris in April,” blah blah blah. They obviously have never spent any friend and nature-filled April afternoons in our dear Empire, flying kites, chasing butterflies, playing at the water’s edge, looking for jack-in-the-pulpits and dutchman’s breeches (“pants flowers”), enjoying picnics in the sun… We were lucky enough to have spent two beautiful April afternoons in Empire recently. So good for our spirits and for the strength of our family ties. It makes such a big difference to spend the day outside, wandering around at a toddler’s pace. Nothing hurried. Just enjoying the renewal of spring and letting it fill our wells after the cold and darkness of winter. Aaah, welcome spring. We are so very grateful for you.

Parenting is improv

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Happy March, lovelies. The strangest winter in northern Michigan continues its stretch of dreary, Slurpee-like conditions. Boo! But I have been determined to make an ice garland for our porch since last winter when I saw Two Chicks and a Hen’s ice garland and wanted to do something similar. I finally seized the day earlier this week when it was warm enough to be outside for a while with my two little birdies and make it AND cold enough overnight for the pieces to freeze. Yessss! But. Quickly the needle rose from 22 to 40 and the ice began to melt again before we could hang it up. Enter my parental improv skills! Because really, without improvisation, my parenting would be pretty lacking. It mostly consists of sugar bribes, empty threats, lots of creative messes and snuggles. With some Montessori-based living skills thrown in. Side note: my kid can cut with scissors and sharpen her own pencils, but I’m still negotiating getting those  %$%^@!#  poopy diapers off with a bucket of Halloween (!) candy. Sigh.

Oh yeah, the ice garland.

So we filled a bunch of muffin tins with water and practiced color mixing with drops of food coloring, took a bunch of fishing line and some (lead-free) weights to keep the line in the muffin holes and left them to freeze.

But when I lifted the lines to hang up, the ice chunks slid down, and they came crashing off. Wren looked at me and my inner voice said “shit!” but my outer voice said, “Let’s put the colored ice in jars and see how beautiful the colors are that you made!” Score.

And she sprinkled them with glitter too because, well, she’s REALLY into glitter right now. But there was quite a bit of colored liquid left in the tins… so we painted the snow!

And then Wren wanted to make a cho-cho train with the pieces… you go, girl!

And in the end, we had a few still stuck on a string we could hang up “for the cardinals” who like to find shelter in this bush.

In the end there was no real blog-worthy ice garland, but there were lessons learned in the power of attitude, enjoying the moment and the importance of improvisation. And beauty in the unknown, as you pour out the hopeful remains. It’s all gone today, washed away with more schlippity schlop out there, but we got to talk again about melting and freezing and there were lots of whys and wheres and whats and sparkles in her eyes with a new understanding of permanence as she tried to reassure me, “well, they’ll probably be back tomorrow, Mama. It’s OK!”

 

helping out our feathered friends

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Happy Monday, lovelies!

I’m back with another easy kiddo-friendly project to while away the dark days of winter. And a great way to help out our feathered friends… a bird nest helper! Grab a suet feeder or mesh bag and fill it with things that the birdies (or squirrels!) might use to build their nests come the spring. Short pieces of string, hair, dryer lint (if it doesn’t contain chemicals), yarn, pine needles, twigs, you get the idea. Just stay away from plastic or long pieces of string. Who know that pulling hair out of a brush could be so much fun for a toddler?!

Then hang it from a tree where your little ones can keep an eye on it. We’ll have ours near the feeders where our birdie friends come every day.

We’re looking forward to the spring when they really do their nesting. It’ll be here before we know it, but for now we’re uncluttering for the benefit of our feathered friends. Have you been doing any fun indoor (or outdoor!) projects lately with your little ones? Let me know – we’re looking for more fun (easy and meaningful!) things to do in our own nest!