Piccole donne crescono

Non posso che essere orgogliosa delle mie piccole donne. Anche dei miei piccoli uomini, ma ultimamente le ragazze hanno dimostrato di essere cresciute molto e di aver sviluppato una capacità ed un amore per la vita di famiglia non indifferente e che mi riempie di gioia.
Per il ritorno di PapaF Gaia e Milla hanno preparato tutto il pranzo. Gaia ha pensato al menu, fatto la lista della spesa, e diretto Milla che la voleva aiutare nella preparazione di tutto. Io mi sono limitata a supervisionare e scattare orgogliosa e commossa.

Non credo ci sia bisogno di commentare le foto.

 Parlano da sole.

Brave vero ?

Regali per PapaF. La moneta l'ho trovata alla fiera, si divide a metà e ognuno ne tiene una. Solo insieme possiamo crearne una intera :)

Il pomeriggio abbiamo portato PapaF a vedere le bancarelle, le caldarroste, i giochi e l'allegria che si respirava per il paese. Ed abbiamo deciso di prendere delle monete per i bambini. Quella da quattro era finita, così ne abbiamo prese due da due, ma dopo averla spezzata le abbiamo mischiate. Nessuno sa chi ha l'altra metà, dunque devono essere insieme tutti e quattro per essere certi di ricostruirle tutte :)

Che altro ... ah ! Al ritorno a casa ci aspettava anche un ospite inatteso ...

Non proprio il mio tipo, ma almeno ci ha offerto un bello spunto di studio.

Sapevate che gli scorpioni sono aracnidi ? Eh si, hanno otto zampe.

Ed infine PapaF cercando testardamente su internet è riuscito a scovare un vecchissimo annuncio della casa con altre foto ( soprattutto con foto ancora online ! ) purtroppo sono piccole piccole, ma giusto per avere un'idea ...

Non avevo capito che il granaio fosse così grande ! Una vera propria casa !

Dai resti di neve dovrebbe essere l'inizio della primavera

L'albero ora non c'è più. Come si vede la casa ha due entrate. Adoro l'ingressoo con le scalette e le panchine. Già mi immagino a sferruzzare seduta lì quando la stagione lo permette.

Una delle molte stufe della casa. L'unico tipo di riscaldamente presente.

Mi piace !!!

Shalom !!!



Il tempo vola

E' finito anche il mese di ottobre. Questo anno sta volgendo al termine. Un anno ricco, l'anno in cui il sogno dell'homeschooling si è realizzato. Un anno duro, per tanti motivi. Un anno meraviglioso, perchè la vita è generosa, a volte mi sembra che l'unica cosa che devo fare è allungare le mani e coglierne i frutti.
La giornate sembrano sempre troppo corte. Tante cose da fare con la mia famiglia. Tanti progetti. Tanto tempo da passare semplicemente insieme. Negli ultimi dieci giorni sono successe tante cose, abbiamo fatto tante scoperte, creato, riso pianto e gridato insieme. La mia famiglia.

Un tranquillo pomeriggio casalingo :)

Una nuova amica si è unita a noi

'' Si chiama mantide religiosa perchè prega Gesù proprio come facciamo noi ''

Sabato scorso dopo una cena al ristorante cinese ( rara coccola che ci concediamo a cadenza secolari ) ci siamo imbattuti per sbaglio in questa manifestazione.

Come dire un dono del cielo. I bambini sono stati educati come sempre, e delle gentilissime persone ci hanno regalato di tutto ( formaggi pane ricotta ).

Mi hanno profondamente colpito, e mi ha fatto riflettere. Ci hanno 'premiato' perchè i bambini erano educati e noi cortesi ed interessati. Mi chiedo, ma non siamo tutti così ? O almeno non dovremmo essere tutti così ? Siamo in un periodo così buio che l'essere gentile e rispettoso viene premiato come un raro ed atteso evento ?

Riflessioni a parte, per i bambini queste sono lezioni di vita importantissime, ringrazio Dio perchè ci permette e ci concede di imparare l'essenziale, l'importante, nel modo più dolce, tramite l'amore dei nostri simili.

Comunque la manifestazione stava chiudendo sabato sera, così ci hanno detto di ripassare l'indomani per far fare ai bambini il percorso didattico 'dal campo di grano alla tavola'.

Così domenica mattina siamo tornati in quel di Ostia ed i bambini hanno passato qualche ora istruttiva ed interessante.

 

Abbiamo poi continuato a nutrire la nostra vena creativa, creando candele e lanterne per Halloween e per il Natale, ed una candela speciale a meluccia ( siamo o non siamo un Apple Tree ? )

Ed ecco l'ultimogrosso ragno che abbiamo preso. Il disegno sul ventre è spettacolare, due occhietti gialli ed un ghigno malefico, non è perfetto ed inquietante ? L'abbiamo sorannominato il ragno Halloween.

(il ragno è morto ovviamente n.d.r. )

Ed ecco Tappo, è uno spasso di coniglio, penso che mi consideri un pò la sua mamma, quando mi vede si tira su sulle zampine dietro, se è libero mi sale in braccio, mi annusa, mi sta intorno.

I bambini lo adorano e se ne prendono cura attivamente, trattandolo come il membro più giovane della famiglia.

Per concludere, Milla questa sera, la sua sera, con la mascherina che avevo lo scorso Halloween

Buon fine settimana e buona vita a tutti !!

Shalom

A new full homeschooling week

 How good and pleasant it is

when brothers live together in unity!

 It is like precious oil poured on the head,

running down on the beard,

running down on Aaron's beard,

down upon the collar of his robes.

 It is as if the dew of Hermon

were falling on Mount Zion.

For there the LORD bestows his blessing,

even life forevermore.

This is my favourite psalm. It gives me strengh in the hard homeschooling days, put a smile on my face. I know i probably take it too litterally, but reading the first two lines makes me think how good and how right it is for us homeschooling, living together, always together. Family as the foundation of the society should be the cradle of everything good, everything beautiful, so that once the kids grow older will bring these same feelings and way of acting and believing and behaving , outside in the greater world and make of it a better place. This last week has been a bit hard on the homeschooling front. I see now all the dameges done in few years of awful teachers. My kids have problems in almost all the subjects and one of them has some kind of problems writing. I think last year he has been treated so badly that he has lost almost all interest for the very concept of learning. My guess is that he prefers to be considered 'evil' then stupid. I'm trying my best to keep my nerves at bay, but since he can act really badly it happens that i 'lose it' and scream and put his stuff away telling him to go away. This is the hardest side of this new adventure. I'm praying i'll find a way to reach my precious child's heart, it's only so difficult for me to put aside the 'world' point of view about what our schooling should be or should not and just let my heart and soul lead our days.

Anyways the week in general has been good, i love the very idea of spending all my time everyday with my family. I love my full and filled days. I love the many many chances i have now to share all i love with my children. I'm so grateful for the chance i've been given. Yesterday we had science. So we went out in the garden and since the winter vegetables were ready to be repotted from the seebed into the bigger vases, we had a practical lesson, checking roots, the stage of development of the plant, the shape of the leaves ... so so beautiful !

Instead here is a pic of a cake Gaia baked on tuesday. I can't believe at 9 she can bake a cake complitely on her own, she take our family cook book, pick her favourite recipe, takes all the ingredients and weigh them, warm up the oven, everything. I only help her to put the tray in and out fearing she might burn her hands. When she baked this last cake she could even direct her brother Seba in helping her. I see it pays off to have always got the kids helping me with the cooking and baking isn't it ?

Then of course, being friday we had our special night. It was Seba's turn so he asked me for homemade pizza and organized a sort of self-service and he was the check-out boy giving ice cubes and candies. He decorated his table with the autumn stuff we have around and took also the toy cash desk they have to be more credible. How fun !

Well, it's time to get some mail out and other serious stuff, better to stop writing.

Have a blessed weekend everybody with your loved ones.

Flavia

Butter-making

Hello all ! I'm sorry i have no evidence so far of what i'm gonna write about but i'll try to fullfill this 'gap' as soon as possible. Saturday i gave it a try on making butter. This is something totally new to me, even more then growing a garden :) but my little farmer Leo is so interested in everything made 'old ways' it gives me one more reason to learn about a more simple life back to our roots. So with the lovely help of the West ladies saturday morning i sat on my almost-rocking-chair shaking this jar filled with milk cream ( i bought the one usually used to make whipped cream ). And i've been shaking and shaking and shaking for half an hour when i realized something was different, i gave the jar a look and what do i see ? A 'ball' of yellowish butter ! I coudn't believe my eyes ! I went running to the kids showing them the just made home made butter and we all got really really excited laughing about it.
Then of course we had to try it... excellent ! You can't really compare with the store bought one ! It's so creamy, with this delicate milk taste, wonderful, and with the buttermilk i could finally try one more Amish recipe 'Buttermilk cookies' : GREAT!!!
I know i know i get over excited with this little things, but sure they make me feel so so loved. I realized if i just let my heart and spirit lead me i find out i've been given all the right skills to live in this world. I only needed to give up all the 'ideas' about how i should or should not live in order to be a modern and liberated woman and follow my heart and listen to my children to find a real treasure God gave us, the world around us, the nature, the work of our hands. Next time i promise i'll take pics of our buttermaking session !

Have a blessed and lovely week you all !

Update and bye bye for a while

Oh my, how busy i've been this week. Visit to the doctor, grocery shopping, dentist for Seba - in a hurry of course - and canning canning and more canning, sewing a new shirt for Gaia, trying to recover and .... GETTING READY TO LEAVE FOR TUSCANY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tomorrow morning we're leaving for Abbadia San Salvatore and we're staying for 10 days !!! We'll be back on 19th and i know i'll have so much to read from the lovely blogs i follow to be updated on everybody. If in the meantime you feel like leaving some notes i'd love to read them when i'm back :)
But back to the update part. It seems that i'm slowing recovering from this nasty nasty infection i got that gave me all kind of breathing problems, very very scary. I must say the fear i lived in for several days helped me to put my life in perspective again, think well to my priorities, grow in my faith, so probably some way it was what i needed, even if i hope and pray never to live this awful experience again.
As for the family, we're fine, some minor health problem for Seba, but nothing bad. I see we're getting in the homeschooling mood. The kids have started doing school work just for fun while i do my chores or cook. We're very relaxed about it at the moment, first of all i want that they start loving school ( meaning *learning* ) again. And then i must say that now i trust that everything will turn out just fine. I just know this is the right thing to do now and i only want to enjoy it now. I don't know how long it will last, depending on the path our lives will take, but NOW i know is the thing for us. As it's beautifully said in the documentary A Journey Home what we need right now is to go back home, united as a family .
And then one of my pride and joy, my garden. We're having a bountiful harvest this year thank God. I think i've already canned ( beside what we've eaten daily ) some 6 or 7 kg of tomato sauce, maybe 4 or 5 kg of eggplants, almost one kilo of pesto sauce and 4 or 5 kilos of cucumber and half kilo of greenbeans beside many herbs drying. I'm so so grateful and amazed by all this. Working the land is so beautiful i so hope this will be my future or at least a part of it. I know i'll be worried for my garden the 10 days we're gone, but we should have taken care of everything and we'll find more ripe vegetables once we'll be back.
But now let's do the images do the talking, some pics of the last week.

Our wonderful harvest, of vegetables and herbs. I can't help but feeling so grateful and provided for. Is such a warm feeling.

Some outdoor fun with water filled baloons.

Gaia and Seba wanted to clean our *pantry* (not really, just that white cabinet in which we keep our supplies ). This is just a part of the canned goods we have.

And this is just i little treat i bought ouselves when i last went doing grocery shopping. Here we use corn only as flour and it's kinda hard to find it in its natural state. So when i found corncob (? is this the right word ? ) at 69 cent i bought 2 . Kids found them so fun and nice :)

Well i think this is all. As i said we're leaving tomorrow morning and we won't have any internet over there on the mountain, so see you all ( or better read you all ;) ) in 10 days !

Have a lovely summer everybody, enjoy your family, hug your kids and kiss their heads and don't forget your dear spouse :)