autumn equinox 2013

Every year since we have moved to west cork the children and I celebrate the end of summer and the beginning of autumn on the autumn equinox. There is a wonderful post written here with some great information and ideas about the equinox, do check it out! 

When we first moved here, we were very lucky to find a wonderful equinox celebration organised at Pairc a Tobair; an ecology project run by 2 Sisters of Mercy nuns.

 The project is set on the edge of a beautiful little town about 45mins from us. We park the car at the gates and walk up the slope to where the sisters live.

 They live here in this little wooden house. They live off the food they grow on their land and live kindly and gently on the earth. They run organic allotments and also gardening courses for people living locally and are the most gentle, welcoming people. They live as if the whole world is God and they live with respect, love and kindness for the whole earth.

 Each year they welcome us with open hearts and arms into their community to give thanks for the summer growth and the bountiful harvest and to reflect on the change of seasons.

 A bonfire burns in the fire pit waiting for us to gather around it.

 Each year we are led in simple songs and dances, written by the sisters or friends of theirs or learnt from Native American tribes.

 This year I was asked to read a poem, it was very special to me being able to offer my thanks and love by participating in this way.

 The kids played around, pretending to be gorillas, but joined in the dances and songs and listened quietly to my reading.
The ceremonies were brief this year. In years past we have watched the sun go down on the surrounding hills in silence or to the music of a flute, but this year we were shrouded in mist and darkness fell gently with no passing of the sun.

 After the ceremony we shared a feast of home made, locally produced food. This year we brought tomatoes and cucumber salads from the garden, coleslaw made from veggies we had grown and that had been gifted to us and an apple cake with organic apples from the farmers market, sweetened with honey and molasses (which Rebe thought were made of mole's asses he he!)

The kids busily helped keep the fire lit by gathering sticks and minding it very carefully.

There was play and chat and meeting people, old friends and new. It was lovely and we stayed until it was dark when we headed back down the hill to the car by torch light.

We love this celebration, it is always the one of the highlights of our year. (this is when we went in 2011 and 2010) In the evening after the kids were in bed a good friend and I shared a glass of wine and reflected on what this year has looked like for us, how much we have grown, how much we have harvested and we both found that our hearts were full of the bounty of being alive on this earth as who we are at this moment.

The Magic Faraway Tree

Before I start here I just wanted to say a heart felt thank you to all of you! I received so many comments, here, via email and on facebook about my last post. It was incredibly touching and empowering to receive so much support and love and to hear so many stories of similar struggles. Thank you :-)

About a month ago we borrowed Enid Blyton's The Enchanted Wood on CD from the library, and it has grabbed our hearts and imagination  Benny in particular spends his quiet times during the day with a cup of hot squash listening to the adventures of Joe, Beth and Franny and the Faraway Tree. 

We thought that it would be fun to make our own Faraway Tree...

Benny very carefully made ladders and doors using lolly sticks and lashings of PVA glue

With some (aherm) assistance I drew out a tree shape on some poster paper...

 Benny mixed us a gorgeous rich brown colour

 and we painted the trunk (the floor, the radiator, the walls, our socks...)

 A few days later (yes! we managed to keep the picture stuck to the floor, untrodden on for more than a day...I couldn't believe it!) we used potatoes to print on green leaf shapes and we used more glue to stick on some beautiful fallen leaves that we had gather from Andy's garden. We also stuck on Benny's doors and ladder and a squirrel Rebe had made at school.

I have to say it looks wonderful growing there in our kitchen and reminds me of my bedroom when I was a teenager. I had a good half-dozen such painted trees around the walls (although that was influenced by my love of the Where the Wild Things Are)
Finally I want to announce that the winner of the copy of Lucy Pearce's wonderful book Moods of Motherhood is Elizabeth who said:
 Oh Laura this post spoke directly from your heart to mine.
Being a mom changes and molds me in each and every moment of life. For me there is nothing else on this earth that has or will have to incrediable power to do that. Sometimes the constant changing and molding hurts so badly and some times it feels like my first morning stretch so very good.

If you email me your address I will get it sent off to you :-) (laura.whalen@yahoo.ie)

Trickle Treat!

Oh it's been a Happy Halloween here today :-)

We spent much of it in the kitchen making very good use of a pumpkin:

 We scooped out all the flesh and carved a funny face on it.

 We rinsed then toasted the seeds in the oven until they were brown. Then while the tin was still hot we plopped a knob of butter onto it, coated the seeds and gobbled them warm.

We made chorizo and pumpkin soup:

and we also made pumpkin cakes.

 It was based on a recipe from this book, which is one of my favourites and while they were baking in the oven we read the stories, poems and songs that are in the chapter on Halloween. The recipe is very simple:

Pumpkin Cake

blend together

2 eggs

3 cups of raw pumpkin

1 tsp vanilla essence

1.5 cups brown sugar (you could use less than this, it was quite sweet)

2 tblsp water

1 tsp each of cinnamon, mixed spice and salt

3 tbsp oil

When this is smooth add in 2 and a bit cups of s/r flour and a tsp of bicarb of soda, half cup of raisins and half cup of mixed seeds and nuts

Mix and plop into cake tins and bake in a medium oven foir about an hour.

When ours cooled we iced it with cream cheese and icing sugar...

For a lover of carrot cake this is a good alternative.
We made 2 cakes, one as a thank you present for friends of ours who very kindly treated us to a trip to the theater yesterday and lunch out.

The other was to take with us when we went out trickle treating (as Benny calls it).

I don't like trick or treating when there is no tricking involved, just asking for treats. IN Scotland we used to do a party piece: a song or a poem or trick. Here I encourage the kids to take a home baked treat to our neighbours when we go. We took pumpkin cake and also baked some pumpkin shapes biscuits (also from a recipe from Family Festivals and Food).

So while all the baking was baking and cooling and not being eaten there was lots of time for drawing:

 Frankenstein

 a mummy

 and also a little crafting:

 The kids made themselves some goodie bags (when it came to be time to go they decided they really weren't big or strong enough and they took baskets instead).
 To try and balance our time between indoors and out we put on our woolies and hats and went out to make witches potions in the garden:

 Do you see that witch there, in the field, collecting herbs and witchy things?

 Benny thought it a good idea to distribute his potion around the garden to help the plants grown next year. So if we have a bumper crop you'll know why!

 Finally it was time to go out...

my dear little witch, pumpkin and cat!

Happy Halloween :-)

pumpkins and pictures

 Friday was Rebe's last day of term and the school had a 'reuse and recycle' fancy dress theme. Rebe and I had made her a vampire costume out of (mainly) bin liners, but complete with a very sweet tin-can bat. I had some lovely pictures of that to show you, as well as some pictures of a cool duplo farm the boys and I made. But when I uploaded the pictures to the computer I found those mysteriously gone! Oddly enough there were 18 pictures like this....

 and no less than 42 pictures in a series depicting Joa peeling and eating a boiled egg...

...and then... AHA! The giveaway... the culprit takes a self portrait....

Once I had found my camera again (somewhere I was sure I hadn't left it and with significantly less charge in it) and got a picture of this boy making a very delicate and careful job of decorating a 'thank goodness it's the half-term break' cake.

 To surprise Rebe on her return from school we left it on the table with one of our 2 pumpkins.  Benny and I wanted to make this one into a fairy house (the other we will carve into a normal jack-o-lantern)

 He thinks when it is halloween we should take it to the woods and leave it there for some real fairies to come and live in. I think that is a great idea and something I'm sure we'll do :-)

The boys also finished their painted pumpkins by sticking some tissue paper at the back and sticking them to the window.

Joa also discovered that not only is the oven good viewing, you can also warm your feet at the same time. I mean can TV do that?!?!

Well, we have had a lovely start to the holidays already and I am so happy we have over a week to just be, to relax and unwind and be together. We have a few things planned but not too much. I hope your coming week is filled with peace and joy and laughter :-)

2 Under Rainbows babies finished and waiting to be shipped to heir new mama's